


Young Fun Sans Sun (Electric Shock Egomania)

by young_american



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, M/M, a fanfic entirely in karkat's pov jesus christ, crime and crimey things like MURDER, murder mysteries, wonky high school shenanigans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-01-05
Updated: 2012-02-12
Packaged: 2017-10-28 23:32:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/313382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/young_american/pseuds/young_american
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Awkward high school senior Karkat Vantas is head over heels for popular, nice, just a really great guy John Egbert--but John Egbert is obviously enamoured with cooldude and not as great a guy Dave Strider.</p><p>So, reasonably, Karkat decides to pretend to be a serial killer in an effort to drive John into his skinny arms, only for the results to turn a bit...unexpected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> That awkward moment when your friend asks you to write them a Dave/John but you are slightly more fond of Karkat/John and prone to coming up with terrible plotlines in the dead of night
> 
> so this is for my biffle Emiggax k
> 
> also i imagine human teenage!Karkat to have a hilarious teen moustache btw
> 
> just for imagery purposes

Karkat Vantas was in so much fucking love right now, it couldn’t be reasoned with.

This was truly ridiculous, he believed wholeheartedly as the sonuvabitch known as his object of affections waltzed into his Biology class three minutes late and sat in the desk diagonal to his upper right. What the fuck was this asshole’s deal, being so hilariously goodlooking despite the overbite and nerd glasses?

At the age of seventeen, Karkat didn’t know how to _deal_ with this kind of shit.

“What the _fuck_ ,” he hissed as his one true goddamn love dropped his backpack on the ground and rummaged through it. His crush pulled out a wildly vibrating phone and stuffed it under his desk, flipping it open to read whatever dismal, ridiculous text he received from his equally dismal, ridiculous friends.

His metaphorical _amour_ giggled. _Giggled_.

Karkat’s heart thumped heavily in his chest.

There was really no good goddamn reason for Karkat Carmen Vantas the Third to be so head over heels for John Egbert. No, seriously, there is no valid, great explanation that’ll make everything bright and clear and _wonderful_ for anyone involved.

This shit was truly, truly, _truly_ outrageous, Karkat decided the moment John shoved his phone between his legs as their overweight, idiotic Biology teacher waddled through the rows of desks. He honestly felt like John might be his soulmate—except that was kind of fucking creepy, so let’s keep it PG, imagination.

PG for preferably good, in this case.

See, Karkat wanted to do all kinds of faggy, romantic shit with the Derpbert. He wanted to take him to a lovely dinner at the local Arby’s, he wanted to hold his hands for short five minute intervals because nobody should touch anybody for longer than that, he wanted to maybe touch his butt? Karkat shook his head—that was weird. 

Karkat didn’t fucks with weird shit.

But Karkat _did_ fucks with being John Egbert’s potential love interest.

He scowled and let out a sigh as he stared at his one true love, twirling a pencil in his fingers half-heartedly.

“You are,” a hiss came from behind him, and Karkat’s neck hair stood on end in his paranoia. “ _thutch_ a creep.”

“Oh man,” Karkat ground out in what he hoped was a whisper. He’s been told that he has problems with volume control, but that was stupid. He meant to be loud, okay? “I completely forgot you were behind me—I guess it’s because you shut your fucking voice box. It was a welcome change, I’d recommend you do it again—“

Sollux pinched the bridge of his nose between his glasses, sighing. “You kill me, KK,” he said in a continued whisper. “You juth _murder_ me. Jethuth _Chrith_ why don’t you juth, I don’t _know_ , _as’th_ him out on a date?”

Karkat’s pencil fell from between his fingers.

Did Sollux just suggest—

“A _DATE_?!” he hissed loudly, turning around in his chair with more dramatics than necessary, some would say. Karkat would say, however, to suck his nuts. “You fucking idiot, you think it’s _that_ simple?!”

“Yes.” Sollux shrugged.

“No!” the sound ripped from Karkat’s throat in a high-pitched mockery of his usual scratchy tenor. Fucking puberty. “You don’t _fucking_ get it, do you Captor?! This is, this is _him_ we are talking about!” Here, he actually struggled to get his voice down to an actual whisper like for real. “He’d never go for me! I’m—“

“Not Dave Thrider?” Sollux reasoned, and Karkat felt any starter boner he was harboring while watching Egbert die a terrible death as the classroom door slammed open and the one and only _Dave_ Fucking _Strider_ strolled in like it ain’t no thang.

But for Karkat, it was a thang. It was a big thang.

“M-Mister Strider!” the teacher called out, indignant but at the same time cowed because fucking Dave Strider. “You’re fifteen minutes late to class! Do you even have an excuse?”

Dave Strider stared at the teacher.

The class was on the edge of their seats.

“Sure,” Strider said with a shrug. “But I gotta say, this excuse might not be up your alley—hell, it might not even be residing on your street, but you know how excuses do. They ain’t the best neighbors, being relatively nonsolid either but can we really blame them for that? Even excuses gotta have excuses—“

“For the love of all that is fucking holy—“ Karkat whispered, covering his face in exasperation.

The teacher squinted at the teenager. “Okay,” he said, obviously confused. “Well, sit down, Mister Strider—you’re holding up your classmates.” He gestured vaguely towards the only empty desk in the class.

Which just so happened to be the one in front of Karkat, and to the left of Egbert.

 _Fuck you Jesus Christ_ , Karkat thought with the utmost sincerity as Strider plopped his fairly flat ass in the seat in front of him. He never claimed to be a religious man.

“Late again, Dave?” Egbert said in a voice that would’ve been condescending if it weren’t coming from the nicest fucking guy in this shitty learning facility. “You should really work on that.”

Strider shrugged, reaching into his backpack and rustling around it for whatever dickbags needed. “Yeah, with all that fellatio in the bathroom, I lost track of time,” he said in his usual serious voice that left no room for arguments.

Egbert giggled again. _Again_.

Karkat covered his face once more, only this time because he didn’t want to be caught blushing. If he was blushing, that is.

“Well shit,” Strider hummed, dropping his backpack. “I am one unprepared son of a bitch—props to my moms.” He turned in his seat to gaze at Karkat with eyes hidden behind totally stalker-styled shades. Karkat dragged his hands low enough on his face to open his golden eyes, only to narrow them at the sight of Strider. “Hey, Creepkat, you got a pencil I could borrow?”

Karkat bristled. “You never give me back my pencils—“ he hissed, but Strider just looked at his desk.

And snatched his only pencil with nimble fingers. “Thanks bro,” Strider said, and turned back around.

Karkat dropped his hands to the desk.

Sollux poked the back of his head with his own pen. “Dave Thrider,” he simply said.

Egbert shoved Strider playfully, and Karkat growled lowly.

Fucking crush on John Egbert—no, _no_ , there was a bigger issue here.

Fucking _Dave Strider_.

\----

“How did you even _th’art_ this creepy cru’th on Egbert?” Sollux asked after school as they sat in Karkat’s room playing Globe of Nerdskill, because was a valid fucking afterschool activity and they were cool. They were so fucking cool, okay?

Karkat guided his level 78 Blood Knight through the dungeon of the dragonkind, murdering the minions he came across in cold blood. “It’s not a _fucking_ crush, you lisping waste of bone marrow,” he sniffed. “I swear to fucking god we were meant to be.” Another dragon _dead_ , like his soul.

Sollux coughed, shaking his head in disbelief. “But it makes no _thense_ ,” he said carefully, his level 87 Mage following Karkat dutifully through the dungeon. “You guyth don’t have _anything_ in common. Have you even talked to him before?”

“Oh fuck you, we have tons of shit in common!” Karkat snapped, turning towards his friend(?) with bared teeth. “We both have black hair—“

“Outthide of phythical thimilaritieth,” Sollux said simply.

Karkat faltered. “We…both like movies?” he tried, but then nodded in agreement with himself. “Yeah, we both love movies! Fuck you Shitbag.”

Sollux cocked an eyebrow, staring into his very soul from behind those bi-coloured circular spectacles. “Thoooo,” he started, continuing on with the game. “You’re in love with him, becauthe you both like movieth? Nothing elthe?”

“Ugh! You’re fucking ridiculous,” Karkat snarled, ignoring any potential irony from him making that statement. “I can’t fucking _explain_ why John goddamn Egbert is meant to be with me, okay? He just _is_.”

“What do you even _know_ about him?” Sollux demanded, probably squinting at him in exasperation if his facial expression had anything to say about it. “KK, you’re kind of creepy, and remember last year with Terezi—“

“Fuck Terezi!” Karkat shouted, throwing his hands in the air in frustration. “Last year was an ongoing awkward middle school dance of miscommunication to a degree that an accredited institution of higher fucking learning couldn’t bestow.” He paused. “And I know tons of shit about Egbert. We’ve known each other since seventh fucking _grade_ , nutsucker. We are also Chumpage friends.” He minimized his game window and opened his internet browser.

He brought up Chumpage, and went to John Egbert’s profile. “See?” he turned his laptop towards Sollux, who looked at it with an expression of mild surprise. “Fuck your disbelieving eyes.”

“My next, and hopefully final, question is,” Sollux said, fixing his glasses upon his nose. “Why don’t you just as’th him out?”

Karkat turned his laptop back towards himself, only to find the answer to all of Sollux’s stupid questions staring at him from Egbert’s profile picture. “Fucking _Dave Strider_!” he roared, and his friend covered his ears.

John Egbert had at _least_ a thousand friends on Chumpage despite being a seventeen-year-old high school senior at Suburbia Alternative High School, and out of every friend he could choose to take a drunk clingy white girl picture with, he chose _Dave Strider_? And then he made it his _profile picture?_

“To be fair,” Sollux reasoned once Karkat quieted down. “They _are_ be’th friendth.”

“No, they _aren’t_ ,” Karkat hissed, shaking his laptop monitor, wherein John Egbert’s latest status was “ _arcade time with @Dave Strider, hope to meet up with @Rose Lalonde and @Jade ‘Becsgurl’ Harley! :D_ ” with at least 9 likes even though it was the most menial shit in the world. “Egbert is in _love_ with that ineffective bag of missed cumshots!”

“Groth,” Sollux grimaced. “And Egbert ith definitely not in love with Dave Thrider, KK.”

Oh for the love of Christ, did Sollux know _anything_? “Yes he _is_ ,” Karkat said slowly, rubbing his temples. “The only thing more obvious than my unfortunate crush on Egbert, is his devotion to Strider, for the sake of _science_.”

“There ith _nothing_ more obvious than your cru’th on Egbert,” Sollux reassured him seriously. “ _Nothing_. And that devotion ith more like _friendth thince birth_ devotion. Even though they’ve been friendth for slightly longer than you’ve known Egbert. Tho, I still don’t thee the problem with you a’thking him out…?”

“As long as John Egbert is madly in love with Dave fucking Strider,” Karkat explained for what had to be the umpteenth time to this moron. “He will never go for me.”

“Especially with that mouthathe—“  

“And if I just knew a way to cut that fucking _umbilical_ cord that refuses to let them be apart for more than ten feet,” the shorter teen continued, rubbing his chin in thought. “Then maybe…”

Sollux stared at Karkat for a long while. Karkat actually felt, like, _eyes_ boring into his very being. It was kind of disconcerting to his thought process, actually.

“You kill me KK,” Sollux finally said, repeating his words from earlier in the day. “Really. _Murder_.”

Karkat snorted, rolled his eyes—and then froze.

“That’s it,” he whispered, eyes wide as he turned to his now official almost best friend. “That is fucking _it_.”

“Pleathe let this not be thomething ridiculouth,” Sollux requested, but Karkat ignored him immediately.

“It’s perfect, it’s flawless, and it’s a _great plan_!” Karkat insisted, gesticulating wildly. “I’m a fucking _genius_!” Which wasn’t new news, actually.

Sollux sighed. “What the hell are you talking about,” he asked with a tired expression.

“I’ll tell you what I’m talking about, you toothy mouthed troll-faced dickchoker!” Karkat crowed, standing up from his carpeted floor. “You’ll marvel at my fucking _feet_ when you realize how fucking _great_ my plan is.”

The bespectacled teen braced himself. Probably for the pure _genius_ that was coming his way. “Okay, tell me.”

Karkat cleared his throat, a smirk on his thin lips. “I am going to kill John Egbert.”

 **end one**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whatever I like it WHATEVER
> 
> I am going to write more now with 50% more pubic hair moustaches
> 
> And nobody told me how STUPID it is to write out a lisp fucking christ
> 
> Hope you liked it too


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i swear to god this will make sense lmfao i swear
> 
> it’s all part of my nefarious plan
> 
> awkward teen karkat is so fucking awkward lmaoo
> 
> also remember that this is a game of pReTeNd and that there will be absolutely no character death, a load of creepy shit, but nobody will die
> 
> read ON

Karkat _probably_ could’ve worded that better.

“You probably could’ve worded that better,” Sollux said, looking up at him with what had to be the most deadpan expression after anything from the Strider clan. “Otherwithe I would think you were planning on _murdering your crush KK what the fu—_ “

“I am not planning on _murder_ you dumb pile of shit!” Karkat exclaimed, smacking his forehead. “Jesus fucking Christ do I seem that psychotic to you—and if you answer in the positive I will choke the ever loving brain matter out of you Captor.”

Sollux shut his mouth with a click of his oddly sharp teeth.

“Okay, _okay_ ,” the shorter teenager paced his bedroom, scowling all the while. “Since you are so _stupid_ it is potentially traumatizing, I guess I’ll have to explain this to you in an easier way. _Fuck_.”

“That would be nithe,” his friend replied. “Even though you aren’t very nithe, KK.”

Karkat glared at him. “Shut the fuck up, asswipe,” he said kindly. He stopped pacing, and took a deep breath. “Okay, so I’m _not_ planning on killing Egbert.”

“Thank _Chrith_.”

“Fuck you. No, my plan is so much fucking better than anything like that,” Karkat insisted, a smile creeping onto his face. Unfortunately, his face wasn’t used to smiling, so it probably looked like a pained grimace. “I am going to pretend to kill Egbert.”

“And you loth me again,” Sollux replied, leaning his head against Karkat’s bed. “Please don’t kill your crush.”

“What part of _pretend_ is beyond your minimal powers of deduction?” Karkat demanded, crossing his skinny arms. “I’m not going to touch a hair on his pubescent fucking body, you moron—but I am going to do a little psychological warfare.”

Sollux’s face dropped. “KK, you aren’t a psychologith holy _thit_ ,” he argued. “What the fuck are you going to _do_?!”

“I’m going to pretend to be a serial killer,” Karkat explained, his eyes glittering with glee. And possibly tears, if he didn’t take his contacts out soon. “And John Egbert is going to be my victim. I’m going to pull a bunch of shit like I’m _planning_ on killing Egbert, and every time it happens, I—as normal, not a killer Karkat Vantas—will be there to comfort him. Soon, he’ll realize what a great fucking guy I am, and we can watch _Must Love Dogs_ together while almost holding hands.” He clapped his hands together, exposing his teeth in a terrible smile. “It’s _fucking_ flawless.”

“…” Sollux took off his glasses. “KK, you’re crazy.”

“Wait—“

“This entire _plan_ is pure _inthanity_ ,” he continued, rubbing his eyes. “And it _might_ be the dumbest thit I’ve ever heard. Unfortunately, in thith cathe, I’ve known you for a little over ten yearth, and this only _thrapes_ the top of the iceberg of _dumb thit_ KK hath thaid.”

Karkat stared at him, speechless.

“But you haven’t done anything so thupremely _thupid_ in a while,” Sollux said with a shrug. “Tho, I’ll let you do it.”

“You were going to _stop_ me?” Karkat demanded. Now that was just _rude_ —you can’t stop a man’s plan for pretend murder in the name of love and expect to still be cool.

Sollux put his spectacles back on, straightening them before looking back up at Karkat. “Not really,” he replied. “I wath juth gonna do the thame thing I’m doing now.” He returned to his computer, typing quickly with sure fingers as he stared at the screen.

Karkat sputtered in displeasure. “Wait, what are you doing?” he asked, dropping down to his knees and scuffling towards Sollux’s computer.

“Juth updating my Chumpage,” Sollux responded. He pressed a button. “Okay, I’m done.”

Karkat looked over his friend’s shoulder at Sollux Captor’s Chumpage profile, which sported a profile picture of Sollux taken with a shitty webcam at a pretty unflattering angle of the teen on his bed.

His latest status read, “ _ii wonder when @Karkat Vantas wiill ever get tiired of beiing a total p2ycho iin a completely hiilariiou2 way_ ” and apparently it was liked by Terezi Pyrope, Vriska Sekret, and seven other people.

“Go suck on a beehive,” Karkat grumbled, and then furrowed his eyebrows in anger. “And, and _fuck_ Vriska! She thinks _I’m_ a psycho? Holy fucking shit can somebody call the ironic embassy and get the ambassador of incongruity in here?! I mean, the shit she does is worse than _anything_ I could come up with on a _good_ day!”

Sollux hummed in agreement. “Tho you admit that thith ith a terrible idea and that you thould leave thith kind of nefariouth, murderouth thit to our friendth like Vrithka?” he asked with his head tilted in amusement.

“What? No,” Karkat scoffed at the mere thought of such. “It’s a great idea, and I’m not planning on crippling Egbert from the waist down in the name of love.”

“You’re juth going to pretend to kill him…in the name of love inthead?” Sollux tried, cocking an eyebrow.

“Yes.”

There was a heavy silence in the room for a while after that, where Karkat mindlessly played with the frayed ends of his carpet, and Sollux stared up at the ceiling with a blank expression for some time.

“Okay,” the bespectacled teen spoke up, after two painful minutes of that silence shit. “I’m off, KK. I’ll text you later, to keep updated with thith…plan, or whatever.”

Karkat sputtered indignantly as Sollux stood up and dusted off his backside. “W-where the hell are you going?” he demanded with wide eyes.

“Huh? Oh, I’m going home,” Sollux replied, checking his wristwatch. “It’th like _theven_ , dude.”

“Oh.” Karkat still didn’t believe that’s why his friend was leaving, but he also suspected that the real reason would make him explode in rage. And he hasn’t eaten dinner yet, so he didn’t have the energy to verbally tear the idiot apart. “Well—bye then.”

Sollux gathered up his things, stuffing them gracelessly into his bookbag, and he hefted the bag onto his shoulder with a small grunt. “Oh, chin up, KK,” he said with a small smile that exposed his rather frightening canines. “We’ll thee each other tomorrow—you al’tho need to tell me all the happeningth with the unconventhional wooing of John Egbert.”

And he walked out of Karkat’s room.

Karkat stared at his open door for at least a minute.

 _Fuck_ the nonbelievers, he finally thought with a low growl after tearing his eyes away from his doorway.

He didn’t care who thought otherwise—Pseudo-Serialstuck was happening, and it was happening _soon_.

\----

While Karkat actually hated very little more than he fucking abhorred his pathetic excuse of a father—whom of which was a recovering and reverting alcoholic that only spoke in indecipherable grumbles and snarls—he did not deny the man his years of existence which might’ve lead to actual usefulness.

“Okay, Dad, let’s take off our Shitfaced Stickers,” he started with clenched teeth as his father knocked back his third beer of the night at the dinner table. “And put on our _listening caps_ , okay? Your son, _me_ , needs some…advice, if that’s how I could word it to force something useful out of you.”

“Hmmph?” his dad grumbled, squinting at him grumpily. “Mmrrph.”

“All right, first of all, go suck a dick,” Karkat snapped, glaring into his bowl of alphabet soup. “And when you get enough semen in your system to balance out the testosterone you’ve lost via being a fucking pussy, I hope you’ll understand that, _yes_ , I do need help sometimes. I’m a genius, not perfect.”

His dad shrugged. “Grrrggh.”

God he had the worst father of all time. How his sperm managed to create something as great as Karkat, science would never know.

“So,” Karkat began with shifty eyes, idly stirring the letters in his bowl around. “Hypothetically—“

“Haurrgh,” his dad groused, rolling his golden eyes and tipping back his can of beer.

“Shut _up_ , Dad! Jesus Christ,” the black-haired teen closed his eyes to calm himself down, before he did something unreasonable. Like, stand up and stalk out the kitchen to sit in the bathroom and scream. “Anyway, like I was saying. So, let’s say, _hypothetically_ , I wanted to pretend to kill someone—hey dad, _shoosh_. Your son whom is leagues more intelligent than you, he’s talking, and he’d really fucking appreciate it if you’d _listen_ for once.”

His dad rolled his eyes. Again.

“What would you do if you wanted to _pretend_ to kill someone—not actually kill, since everyone’s under the impression that I’m a fucking _psycho_ or something.”

His dad gave him a really, _really_ significant look that was probably supposed to mean something to him.

Unfortunately for Papa Vantas, it _didn’t_.

“Hmm,” his dad hummed, furrowing his thick brows in thought. “Hrrgh, grummbrl mmph.”

“I don’t want to actually kill the Derpbert!” Karkat exclaimed, eyes wide in horror. “Fuck, and even if I _did_ , I’m pretty sure dismembering him and amputating his limbs would be _ridiculously_ cruel. Even for me.”

“Meh.” His dad shrugged. He tried.

“Ugh, I knew you’d be fucking useless,” Karkat deflated, sliding down in his seat. “Dad, come on. You’re the creepiest guy I know after Eridan—you’ve gotta know _something_ I can do!”

His dad stared at him for a long, _long_ while.

It was actually kind of humbling, and made Karkat want to dip under the table until the hard stare of his father disappeared.

“Grmm haurgh mmmph,” his dad responded after a while, crossing his arms.

Karkat gaped, and shot up straight in his chair.

“That, that could work,” he said, looking at his soup in wonder. Even the fates were smiling at this idea, as the letters totally spelt ‘ **R K L P D** ’ which was probably Norwegian for ‘Karkat is the best fuck you.’ “That could really fucking work, I am completely surprised with you right now, Dad.”

“Huh.” His dad shook his head, and returned to his beer.

\----

The next day, Karkat stalked to his locker with a backpack full of dreams, and shit that could probably get him carted to a criminal psychiatrist if someone found out about it by some freak chance.

When he got to his locker, however, he was greeted with the most unpleasant surprise before he could even enter his combination.

“So I think you need a cool serial killer name, something like, _Karkat the Kid_ , or _the Cancer Killer_ —nice, right?”

“Jesus, Terezi!” Karkat yelped, jumping at the sight of his ex-kind-of-crush leaning against the locker next to his and grinning like she had no care in the world.

It didn’t help that she was legally blind with a loud fucking cane, and _still_ managed to sneak up on him.

Terezi grinned wider, leaning all up in Karkat’s metaphorical grill as she touched his face and shit. “But, what did you think of the names, babe?” she asked, her tongue flicking out to wet her lips.

Karkat sent a quick prayer to the god he only used so he could take its name in vain, and gently pushed Terezi away from his personal space. “I think they were complete wastes of oxygen that was shitty to begin with, especially to be expelled on someone as undeserving as me,” he answered kindly. “And I have no i-fucking-dea where this is even coming from, you crazy bitch.”

The blind girl retracted for a moment, only to laugh loudly in Karkat’s face. It attracted the attention of everyone in the hallway near them, and when they saw she was laughing at _him_ , they also thought it would be fucking great to chuckle along.

 _One day I will own every fucking thing you love,_ Karkat thought maliciously as some dickwad he didn’t even _know_ giggled at him in passing. _And then I will shove you all off cliffs. Just, a bunch of cliffs. Shoved._

“So now you’re playing coy? We’re going to play coy?” Terezi asked after her laughter died down, and she wiped an invisible tear from under her glasses. “Right. We’re playing coy. Game on, Karkat Vantas.” She smirked, and Karkat got a little scared. “So I guess you totally aren’t going to kill John Egb—“

“Okay, fuck Sollux!” Karkat snarled, jerking at his locker combination in hopes it would open from his anger. “Did he tell you? I bet he told you. That smoldering pile of thrice digested _shit_ —how the _fuck_ —“

“First of all, stop with the gross insults,” Terezi cut him off, wrinkling her delicate nose in disdain. “And, _secondly_ , numbnuts—no, Sollux didn’t tell me.” She smiled again. “He told Aradia, who offhandedly told Nepeta, who definitely told Equius no question, who told _Gamzee_ , who can’t keep a secret from Tavros, who was forced to tell Vriska at the risk of his testicles, who blabbed to Eridan, who obviously told Feferi because he seriously wants that vagina, and she told Kanaya, and I heard it from Aradia in the beginning.”

Fucking Terezi.

Just.

Fucking _Terezi_.

“You were put on this earth,” Karkat replied calmly. His locker finally popped open after all this time. “To make me the most miserable sack of muscle and fat in this fucking universe. If there is a god, he fucking hates me, and your senseless existence is proof of this.”

He placed his backpack in the locker.

Terezi laughed at his emotions.

What a normal fucking day.

“So I guess we can go with the _Karkat-cutioner_. It’s like your name and executioner. It’s fucking _genius_ , babe!”

“I’m not _killing_ anybody, you dumb pile of estrogen,” he snapped, jerking open his backpack and rustling around inside it. “If Sollux told the story correctly, of which I’m sure he didn’t because all of my friends are fucking idots, then you would know that I’m—“

“Pretending to kill your crush, yeah, yeah, whatever,” Terezi waved him off. “Still sounds psycho. Which means it’s right up your alley and—wait." She sniffed the air suspiciously. "Are you putting on gloves?”

Karkat looked away nervously as he adjusted the black leather glove he donned on his left hand. “Yes,” he answered carefully. “But not for any weird reason since you’re looking at me like I’m going to stab you, douchebag.”

“If this is how you express your love,” Terezi replied gleefully. “Then I am _really glad_ you got over that crush on me. I am _extremely pleased_ Creepkat you don’t even know.”

Sometimes…sometimes he did want to off Terezi and friends.

But Karkat is a kind man who would never kill off someone who knew so much shit about him. God, _fuck_ friendship—literally the worst thing to ever bestow upon man, no lie.

“So!” the dark-haired girl started again, whacking his legs with her cane. “What are you going to do first? Call his cellphone from a private number and ask him inappropriate questions with a towel over your mouth?”

“Stop hitting me, fuckass!” Karkat yelped, though he acknowledged her guess as a pretty good idea. He took note of it for the future. “And I’m not going to tell you, lest I want the entire fucking school riding my sperm handler about this shit.”

“Awww,” Terezi huffed, pouting. “Well, I’ll find out eventually. How many classes do you have with Egbert, anyway? I mean, you creep _really_ hard on him, so you’ve gotta have more than one.” She cackled at that, even though there wasn’t anything funny about her statement.

Karkat grabbed his books and papers for the first half of the day out his locker and slammed it closed angrily. “You are one of the shittiest people I know,” he replied with a sigh. “And I have two classes with him, one of which I am on my way to if this fucking bell will ring so I’ll have a valid excuse to get away from you.”

Terezi scoffed. “You will never escape me.”

The bell rang.

“Except for right now,” Karkat replied, and he sprinted down the hall away from the blind girl before she could catch up. A lot of people would probably shake their heads at him for trying so hard to get away from a tiny teenage girl who was obviously incapable of even navigating alone, let alone hunting him down.

But these people didn’t know Terezi Pyrope.

She made police dogs look like defective four-legged sacks of mental retardation.

His Senior Calculus class came into sight, with the also unwelcome sights of his classmates/sources of psychological trauma Eridan Ampora, Feferi Peixes, and Tavros Nitram waiting for him at the door.

Actually, Tavros wasn’t that bad. A bit of a fucking pussy, but not terrible.

Karkat guessed it was hard to be as phenomenal an asshole as the rest of his friends when you were in a wheelchair with a stutter.

“H-hey Karkat,” Tavros greeted with a smile. “How are you, t-today?”

Karkat slowed to a stop when he reached the door and nodded at Tavros in the positive. “I want to claw the skin on my unnaturally good-looking mien off,” he replied with a shrug. “But that’s nothing new.” He looked over at the Dynamic Duo of Non-Dating Drama and narrowed his eyes. Eridan sneered in response. “Desperate Dickhole, Femnazi,” he greeted, and shoved past them to get inside the class.

“Aww, don’t be like that,” Feferi giggled, following close behind him as they dodged the paper airplanes and spitballs that flew through the class. This was one of the less quality classes, Karkat would admit with a scowl, and cursed the school counselour for not letting him into AP Calculus with Sollux and Vriska. Fuck her; nearly failing algebra in ninth grade wasn’t any fucking reason to not let him into the class. “We only want to support you~.”

“Murderous rampages and all,” Eridan added, completely unnecessarily.

Karkat ignored them, because there was a classroom conundrum going on. He usually he sat near the back of the class away from the window next to Tavros—but, today, someone was in his seat.

Tavros gasped. “I th-think _John Egbert_ is in your seat,” he whispered at Karkat, who didn’t know whether to cry or toss a desk out the window.

Eridan coughed in laughter behind him.

Feferi shoved his shoulder excitedly. “This is the _perfect chance_!” she said excitedly. “He’s right there, ripe for the killing—aw, you wouldn’t hit a girl, Karkat! And turn that frown upside down, I’m trying to help.”

Karkat lowered his clawed hand with a lot of force, and took in a deep breath. “What the _fuck_ am I supposed to do?!” he whispered furiously at his friends. Usually he would be completely okay with John Egbert’s ass touching his favorite desk—in fact, it was preferable to _him_ touching Egbert’s butt. But when he was trying to pretend to kill the guy? Come _on_.

“Ask for your seat back, retard,” Eridan scoffed, and he walked past them to take his usual seat in front of Tavros’ desk. Feferi shrugged helplessly, and she wheeled Tavros to his seat before taking her desk behind him.

Karkat was left to stare at John Egbert, who was texting and laughing _in_ _his seat_ , with a helpless expression.

He slowly walked over to Egbert, and cleared his throat. He needed to be cool, be confident, be _Karkat_. “Hey, fuckball,” he said, and instantaneously heard the choked sound of laughter from fucking Eridan’s direction.

Egbert looked up, his blue eyes wide and beautiful and so fucking open and Karkat can’t deal—he can’t deal! “Oh, hey Karkat!” he greeted happily. The golden-eyed teen felt his heart try to barrel through his chest, because holy _fuck_ John Egbert knew his name. “Nice gloves! What’s the dealio, bro?”

“You’re in my seat,” Karkat said in what he _hoped_ wasn’t a deadpan. God he hoped it wasn’t a deadpan.

Egbert’s expression dropped a little. _Fuck_ it was a deadpan, goddammit.

“Aw, I’m sorry, Karkat,” Egbert apologized, looking down with a small frown. Karkat felt like the worst fucking being on the face of this decaying planet. “But someone was in my seat, and I only took this desk because I thought you’d be cool with it—“

There was another seat behind Egbert. “Its fine,” Karkat replied, trying to school his face into something that wasn’t a disgusted scowl. “I’ll sit in the goddamn seat behind you.”

“Thanks Karkat!” Egbert looked honest to god thankful that Karkat didn’t ream him or something. “I promise, you won’t even notice I’m here!”

“ _Tough luck with that, Egbert_ ,” Eridan whispered loudly. Karkat idly wondered if the shitbag got paid for his participation in the peanut gallery.

Karkat shuffled to the seat behind Egbert and plopped down in it rather ungracefully. However, inside, he was a fucking _mess_. He wasn’t supposed to be in such close contact with Egbert until Biology, and that was two classes away! That’s when he was supposed to begin part one of Pseudo-Serialstuck, and then he was gonna go home and stalk Egbert’s Chumpage until the object of his carnal affections inevitably posts a status about it.

Because John Egbert will post a status about anything and _everything_ , jesus Christ.

And his backpack—fucking Egbert’s backpack was hanging on the back of his seat, _in front of Karkat_ , with the zipper open and everything.

It’s like God wants this to happen, Karkat tried to reason with himself. God or the turns of fate that _didn’t_ hate the shit out of him.

 _There’s no time like the present_ , Mother Theresa said. Well, she didn’t actually say it, because it’s a proverb, but she _seemed_ like the kind of word breather that would spew some stupid shit like that.

Karkat opened his Biology book, and grabbed the envelope in between the chapter of genetics and the page talking about penises.

 _I can do this,_ he thought, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth.

(He looked up ‘How to kill your first love without getting caught’ on Troogle, and with his dad’s advice, he’s become a lean, mean, fake-killing machine.)

He looked to the side, where Tavros was playing Canadian Wildlife Master Garnet Version under the desk, Eridan was combing the stupid purple part of his hair into different styles, and Feferi was texting and probably being way too enthustiastic about it.

Karkat put the envelope in Egbert’s backpack.

And then he took the time to stare at the back of John’s upswept bluish-black haircut wistfully.

He really fucking hoped this worked.

\----

When he walked into Biology, Karkat’s vision was unfortunately assaulted by his entire class crowded around Egbert’s desk.

“What it it?” one cockchoker asked.

“Where is it _from_?” another dickwipe inquired.

“Dude, this is kinda creepy,” some probably sensible young man stated.

Karkat crept closer to see what the hubbub was about, and to look at Egbert but that was basic human instinct.

John Egbert held a card in his hand, one with a completely blank front. At the request of some of his classmates, he turned it around to show the short, red inked message inside.

 **I THINK ABOUT YOU SO MUCH IT FUCKING KILLS YOU**

And that was it.

Karkat thought it was appropriately creepy, and a good start towards alerting Egbert of his possible but not really death.

Egbert, however, didn’t look so bothered about it, which Karkat did _not_ understand. “I don’t know,” he said laughingly. “It seems, funny? Like, whoever put this in my bag is super socially awkward and doesn’t know how to use pronouns very well. They probably meant to say ‘it fucking kills me’ or something. I like it!” He giggled, closing it and opening it again.

Karkat felt a gaze burning into the side of his head, and he knew Sollux was judging the living _shit_ out of him.

“What did your crew have to say about it?” another classmate asked, and everyone else agreed with the question. “Were they creeped out?”

“Oh _man_!” Egbert crowed, grinning. “Rose thinks it’s, like, a psychological goldmine. She wants to borrow it later to do some evaluations or something. Jade does think it’s kinda creepy, though, which is reasonable I guess.”

Fuck Rose Lalonde—Karkat was not a _psychological goldmine_. He just wasn’t.

“But what about _Dave_?”

And a chill rushed down Karkat’s spine.

“Oh, Dave hasn’t seen it yet,” Egbert replied, shrugging. “But he probably won’t be that bothered about it. He’ll think its stupid or whack or whatever, and then life will go on.” But his classmate continued to chatter about, asking questions and making assumptions.

Karkat took this chance to shove through them, not really caring if they yelped or made a sound of pain because he didn’t really care about most of the students in his shitty school in general. God he couldn’t wait to graduate.

He sat down, and took off his gloves. His hands were getting sweaty in those shits.

“KK,” Sollux began right away, not even giving him a chance to get his life together. What an inconsiderate dick. “When I called you creepy, I never truly meant it. Not until _right fucking now_.”

“Quiet down, moron!” Karkat hissed, turning around in his seat. “I’d rather not the entire fucking school know about this, unless you want me to get arrested or something you son of a homosexual union!”

“My dad’th have done nothing to you,” Sollux retorted. “And even if they did, it wouldn’t be _nearly_ ath bad ath what’th gonna happen when Dave Thrider get’th a hold of thith.”

“Fuck Dave Strid—“

“Dave, you’ve gotta check this out!” And speak of fucking Satan, the Duke of Douche has entered the building. Well, classroom, whatever. “It’s creepy as shit, man! Some psycho is macking on your boyfriend!”

Strider cocked an eyebrow over his dark shades. “Like I’d date someone as cool as the Derpbert. I’m telling you that this guy is way too fucking good for a dweeb like me,” he replied, and he took a step towards Egbert’s desk. The crowd parted like the Red Sea immediately, and the dickwad continued forward. He snatched the paper out of his friend’s hand, and opened it. “So what do we have…here…”

Strider made an expression.

It was kind of difficult for Karkat to explain, since he’s never actually seen Dave Strider make any expression that wasn’t a smirk or completely deadpan before.

His lips did this little downturn thing and his brow furrowed heavily as his nostrils flared. On any other person, it might’ve looked like apprehension or disturbance, but you can never know with goddamn Dave Strider.

“Yeah, whatever,” he threw the card back on the desk. “I guess we can now elect John Egbert as the respectable mayor of Stalker City, let’s give this man a round of applause.” He clapped twice.

The class actually burst into a round of applause. Like, _actual fucking applause_.

Karkat gripped the edge of his desk and snarled lowly in his rage.

He may have loved John Egbert like his dad loved German beer, or like Harry loved Sally in _When Harry Met Sally_ —

 —but he really fucking hated Dave Strider.

 **end two**


	3. three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your kind words so far~~ y’alls da best mang I mean fo real doe
> 
> turns out I only write fast when I’m not playing kingdom hearts what a shocker
> 
> but ignore the three (four?) day gap and i hope you enjoy this shit bitchezzzz
> 
> thank based god for all your smiles

It was two days later in Home Economics, that Friday, where the buzz about John Egbert’s grammatically incorrect stalker finally died down, and Karkat could finally take a fucking breath in relief into his bowl of cake mix.

Jesus fucking Christ, he could barely get within ten feet of Egbert without hearing some asshole smearing words of worry and _apprehension_ and shit all over the guy. It was a fucking note! Not a threatening message carved into his locker!

(“Which is thomething you thould _definitely_ not do,” Sollux told him on Wednesday when he brought it up. “Unleth you want me to dithown you ath both a human being and thomeone I know. Juth thayin’.”)

“What’s got you all wound up, dude?” his actual best friend that he would never actually acknowledge as such, Gamzee, spoke up, pausing in looking at his own bowl. “Shit man, you’re like a fuckin’ spring in this bitch, chill _out_.”

Karkat glared at Gamzee, who just stared back at him with that irritatingly calm expression underneath that hastily applied clown make-up.

Which…was kind of weird, but nobody had the heart to tell Gamzee that he, one, looked like a drag queen that was punched out in both eyes, and two, came across as mildly psychotic with all that white make-up caked on his face, coupled with his wild brown hair.

“I am chill,” Karkat grumbled, snatching his whisk up from the table. He jabbed it into the cake mix, and started jerkily pulling the gross looking goop around in the bowl. Fuck this was such a stupid class—baking cakes and washing dishes? It was like learning how to become a huge failure in life. “I am so fucking chill, I am a verifiable iceberg in the middle of the Atlantic. So how about you stay on your fucking boat, _Rose_ , and let me be chill in peace.”

“You know,” Gamzee replied with a click of the tongue. “I think we should make more fuckin’ pie in this class. Like, yeah, cakes are cool and shit at first. I like a good cake at a birthday party—but can it really beat a motherfuckin’ pie?” He shook his head, sighing. “The answer is no. Nothing can beat a fuckin’ pie, Brokat. Not even _cake_.”

What the fuck was this guy talking about? “What the fuck are you—okay, you’re right,” Karkat shook his head, plopping down in his seat with his bowl close to his chest. It couldn’t hurt to open up to Gamzee, could it? “I’m _not_ fucking chill—God I don’t know how to fucking explain it, Gamzee.”

Gamzee’s hand shot up. “Yo, teach’!” he called. “Makara the Balla’ over here, with a motherfuckin’ request that’ll change your life!”

The teacher, a large, hulking man with the most inappropriate wide-brimmed fedora, immediately groaned at the sound of Gamzee’s deep, lulling voice. “Fuck yer _pies_ ,” he thundered, slamming his fist against the countertop angrily. “We are making goddamn cakes today, Gamzee—we are making strawberry sprinkle cakes, and _you_ need to accept that fact in yer weak, hippie-influenced life!”

“What? Fuck you, man! Cakes are a sign of a dwindling society and the motherfuckin’ crumbs of the government that will remain in the end! _You’re the_ fuckin’ communist!” Gamzee argued loudly, and he plopped down in his seat with a pout and some odd honking sound. “I just wanted to make fuckin’ peach pie, man.”

Karkat watched the entire event with a detached sort of horror; as Gamzee pretty much just told ex-professional heavy weight boxer turned home economics teacher Mister Boxcars where in hell he could stick his dick, but he couldn’t be truly shocked Gamzee had this sort of interaction with his teachers once a week.

He patted his friend’s shoulder, hoping it would soothe him? Karkat didn’t actually know how to handle other people’s problems, since they usually weren’t that serious. At least, not as serious as his problems.

Problems that Gamzee totally just ignored in favor for an unorthodox request for pie.

Karkat closed his eyes to quell his rising rage. _Fuck_ friendship—it’s never done a Christ forsaken thing for him. Ever.

“So can I get back to telling you about my shitty life or…?” he asked tersely, and Gamzee slumped over to lay his head on Karkat’s shoulder.

This six-foot-one adorable son of a vagrant—Karkat can’t even stand him.

“I’m real sorry man,” Gamzee said, nuzzling into his angrier friend’s sweatshirt. “But it really fuckin’ irks me that a brotha can’t reserve the right to make a pie. Y’know what I mean, bro?”

Karkat choked on his saliva, and shoved the dope’s head off his shoulder. “Do I know what—Gamzee you whacky slab of shitty pie of _course_ I don’t know what the _fuck_ you mean!” he shouted, catching the attention of the rest of the class because apparently he was the only source of goddamn entertainment in their pathetic, useless lives. “I’ve just been sitting here, wading in a pool of your _bullshit_ , but what the fuck ever. Don’t mind little old me, oh _no_.”

“Huh,” Gamzee scratched the back of his head. “And here I was thinkin’ you’d be the silly kinda motherfucker who would wade in a pool of Egbert’s blood. My bad.”

“…” It was official. Karkat was going to punch Sollux in the face. Right between his stupid glasses—just one good knock at his female repellant. “Gamzee, we’ve known each other for a shitload of time. A lot longer than most dickchins would give you credit for managing to survive in basic society.”

“True dat,” Gamzee agreed, nodding.

“And when have I, in all our years of knowing each other, ever given your _pie addled brain_ any goddamn reason to think that I’m going to slaughter John Egbert in cold blood!” he snapped. The class looked at him again, but he steadfastedly ignored them because fuck _them_ , why did they matter?

Gamzee eyed him carefully, and then dropped his head to the top of Karkat’s hair. Karkat, in turn, snarled a little, but didn’t wrap his hands around his friend’s neck for a good choking. “You be doin’ some psychotic shit, Brokat,” he said simply. It was obvious that he said ‘fuck you’ to making a cake as opposed to a pie. “I don’t know if you remember, but I remember that motherfuckin’ shit with Terezi—“

“The Terezi Incident is _not_ an indicator of my fucking sanity, Gamzee!” Karkat hissed. He started back to mixing, because he didn’t actually want to get on Mister Boxcars bad side anymore than he already was for constantly yelling in his class and being the best guy acquaintance of Gamzee Makara—whom, if it wasn’t completely fucking obvious, Boxcars despised from the bottom of his dark soul.

“And apples don’t make peach pies,” Gamzee replied.

Karkat faltered. “What—no—Gamzee—“ he tried so many ways to tell Gamzee that he made absolutely _no fucking sense_ , but the tall teen wrapped his arms around him and covered his mouth with a lean bicep. “Fucking—Mmmrph!”

“Shhh,” Gamzee whispered, rubbing his cheek against Karkat’s hair. “You’re a crazy motherfucker, my main man. I don’t get why you won’t just give the son of a bitch a pie. I bet he loves blueberry, that cheery motherfucker—yo, let’s get on that today! Let’s bake that fucker a pie!”

Karkat had to put his bowl on the table so he could finally have enough arms to violently shove Gamzee off of him. “You overgrown pile of clogged arteries! We’re not making him a fucking pie! It’s literally your answer to everything, even fucking funerals! It’ll clearly be a cold day in hell when I fucking die and you come with, oh, _flowers_ or some shit!” he growled, smacking at the other boy’s wandering arms. “Stop trying to fucking hug me—you make me _sick_.”

“Fuck, you’re right,” Gamzee said, his usually droopy eyes wide and alert. “We gotta do this shit soon, man—oh _shit_ , I need to hit up that motherfuckin’ grocery before it stops being open and whatever. I am suddenly the busiest motherfucker in this classroom—I don’t need to _be here_ , mixing up,” here, he spat the word out, “ _cakes_ and shit. I’ll see your ass on _To Catch a Murderer_ later, my man.”

Gamzee stood up and walked out of the class.

It was beautiful in its simplicity, but maddening in its _fucking ridiculousness_.

How did that useless asswipe become Karkat’s closest friend—nobody will ever know.

“Makara!” Boxcars shouted, grinding his teeth loudly. “I swear to Christ above if you don’t get your mascara-smothered shitface back in here I will shove a cake up your _ass_!”

“See you Tuesday, mothafuckaaaaa—“ was Gamzee’s reply.

Boxcars huffed, then growled, then grabbed his bowl of mix and _careened_ it at the wall, where the plastic shattered and the mix splattered everywhere in gross globs.

Karkat, and the rest of the class really, gaped in horror.

Boxcars glared at everyone. “Make those fucking cakes!” he yelled, and everyone got back into it.

Gamzee was going to be the reason for a Home Economic Genocide in the future, Karkat was fucking _sure_ of it.

\----

The bell signified the end of the school, which meant to Karkat the end of a week filled with mockery and ridicule and everything he dealt with on a daily basis, except this week was slightly worse on his poor, strained nerves.

Like, fuck, his friends/acquaintances/living pits of flesh-burning acid were always the bane of his agonizing existence, but _Jesus fucking_ Christ he had no idea they could get worse until Pseudo-Serialstuck began.

However, Karkat had not yet been deterred by the lack of support on the “friend”front, and decided to take a more…classic approach in his plan.

He’d sent a text earlier as his cake was baking to Sollux, in hopes that the other teen could turn down the goddamn sarcasm and tell him if his idea was good or not. Even though Karkat knew the idea was good, which basically meant that if Sollux disagreed, then tough nuts asswipe—he’s doing it anyway.

 _To Sollux: HEY DICKWAD, I’M GOING TO GIVE EGBERT A PIECE OF THE CAKE I MADE. IT MIGHT TAKE HIS MIND OFF THAT DAMN LETTER, AND CONVINCE HIM FURTHER THAT I’M SUCH A GREAT FUCKING GUY WHO IS GREAT FOR ROMANTIC EXPERIMENTS. IT’S FUCKING FLAWLESS._  

Sollux’s reply has been…odd, to say the least.

 _why would you giive hiim cake you do know that thii2 ii2 john egbert riight_

“What the fuck is this shitbag talking about?” Karkat wondered aloud, but then stuffed his phone in his back pocket and picked up his small, strawberry sprinkle cake.

And it was a great fucking cake, if Karkat may add. He worked hard on it after Gamzee left—mostly to avoid the rage of Boxcars, but also because, hey, why the fuck wouldn’t Egbert like some cake? Even Karkat liked crab cakes.

He was also aware that crab cakes and baked cakes were fairly different, but who the fuck was going to counter him? He is Karkat Vantas, and he is the king of winning arguments so _fuck_ Dick-ipedia.

Karkat’s ears pricked, though, at a familiar sound he knew like the cries of children. “—so I see him walking out, and I’m like, _Zillyhoo_!” Egbert was passing by the Home Ec class, probably with his infamous crew if the smattering of stupid sounding laughter was any indicator.

Fuck, here was his chance!

“H-Hey!” Karkat exclaimed, stumbling out of the class. He cleared his throat, and reminded himself to be the suave motherfucker Gamzee told him he was once. When they were, like, thirteen, but whatever. “Hey, dickwad! Hold up!”

John Egbert turned around, a wide grin on his face.

But then Rose Lalonde, Jade Harley, and _Dave fucking Strider_ also turned around—and none of them looked nearly as happy to see Karkat.

Karkat scoffed at their disdain—he wasn’t jumping for joy at the sight of them either. His feet were planted firmly as shit to the ground in order to not jump, for joy or for the drop kicking Strider so _badly_ deserved.

“Oh, hey Karkat!” Egbert greeted jovially. Karkat’s heart was beating heavily in his chest from the brightness of that fucking smile. God Christ how is it not fucking illegal for someone to be this perfect. “What’s going on, dude?”

“I’ll tell you what’s going on, numbnuts,” Karkat replied calmly, hoping that his tone wasn’t as harsh as it normally is. “I baked this shitty cake in class, and I was wondering if you’d take your head out your ass for a couple of human seconds to take a piece.”

And then there was a short silence.

Harley smacked her forehead. “Oh my god,” she whispered.

Egbert, however, looked at the cake in Karkat’s hands with nothing less than abject horror. “You…baked me…a _cake_?” he asked carefully, like he couldn’t believe Karkat would be so kind.

Actually, he sounded like he couldn’t believe Karkat would be so cruel, but that made no fucking sense because it was just a piece of goddamn cake—what the hell is the issue?

“It’s by Betty Crocker?” Karkat also added cautiously, and Egbert only looked sicker.

Lalonde was looking at the sky with her lips pursed.

 _She better not be holding back her laughter_ , Karkat thought with a low growl building in his chest. Sure, he was laughed at by his peers on nearly a daily basis if one didn't count weekends, but _fuck_ it if they thought they were gonna get away with that shit while John Egbert was in the room and Karkat still had to look a _little_ cool.

Egbert swallowed thickly, his adam’s apple bobbing with the motion. “Karkat, wow…I…don’t know what to say,” he replied.

“’Oh wow, kind and almighty Karkat, I’ll take a piece of your wonderful cake since you took the dear sweetass time out of your life to offer it to my wasting existence,’ would be a great fucking start,” Karkat replied. “You’re wasting my time, assface.”

But before Egbert could even think about taking a slice of the cake, Strider slammed his palm under the plate, forcibly smashing it into Karkat’s sweater.

“Oops,” Dave motherfucking goddamn Jesus CHRIST Strider falsely apologized. “My bad, Creepkat. I thought your cake was a sweetass table for a moment—and you know how I can’t keep my hands off a good turntable, man. You know.”

Karkat squeaked in the highest pitched voice he had in his arsenal, looking down at his now ruined sweater as clumps of strawberry sprinkle cake simultaneously fell off and stuck to the fabric. The plate clattered to the ground. “ _I_ —“

“I’m really sorry bro,” Strider continued, shaking his head. “But at least we _saved_ you the trouble of having to eat it—just in case it was _poisoned_ or some shit like that.”

“ _You_ —“

“We’ll catch you on the flipside, Creepkat,” Strider said finally, patting his shoulder roughly. His glasses slid down his nose and Karkat got a glimpse of terrifying red before the blond readjusted the shades. “Don’t _kill_ too much time this weekend, dude.“

And then, to add salt to the delicious, baked good wound—Strider wrapped his arm around Egbert’s shoulders and led the crew away from the red-faced, gaping teenager.

“ _FUCK YOU STRIDER!_ ” Karkat screamed, and his own ears popped at the volume. He should consider interning at a megaphone factory or something.

Strider waved once, and Egbert turned to give him the most pathetically apologetic look ever created by something that wasn’t some shitty cute animal.

“Oh g-geez,” there was a stammer from his side, and Karkat turned with a deep scowl. Tavros was looking at his shirt with both pity and amusement—and that’s when Karkat knew he hit rock bottom. Once _Tavros_ was laughing at you, then it was clearly time to kill yourself. “Y-you should really watch…w-where you put th-the cake. Y-your mouth is a l-little higher?”

“Great, now you want to consider a career as a fucking comedian to couple with your crappy rap shit?” Karkat retorted, touching his sweater gingerly. “You’d probably be happy to know that I’m many times more supportive of the former, consider how your life is already a fucking joke, _asshole_.”

Tavros smiled at him with a shrug. Like, _I’m not the one with strawberry sprinkle cake decorating my sweater_.

Karkat sneered. Touché, Greek kid in the wheelchair.

“Are you gonna be useful for once in your dismal life,” he began, changing the subject fairly smoothly. “And tell me you have an extra shirt in your locker or something?”

Tavros frowned. “Sorry, K-Karkat,” he replied apologetically. “The last one was used b-by Vriska for a d-drag racing experiment.” He coughed, looking down sadly. “I was th-the experiment.”

Jesus, Karkat would never envy Tavros for anything. Especially his victim status with the craziest bitch he knew, _before_ Feferi and Terezi.

“Fuck.” Karkat sighed. He grabbed the bottom edge of the shirt, grimacing. He wasn’t gonna wear a cake splattered shirt—fuck _that_. “ _Shit._ Okay, whatever, fuck it. This school’s a deadzone Friday afternoons anyway—nobody’s gonna be here.” He took off the shirt.

There was immediately a wolf whistle. “Hot _bod_ , Creepkat!” Terezi cackled, walking by. She smacked him once with her cane, and Karkat didn’t understand why everything hated him so much.

“You can’t even _see_ me!” he exclaimed, covering his nipples immediately.

Terezi just laughed, and continued down the hall.

Tavros looked sympathetic. “I think y-you have a n-nice body,” he said, gesturing vaguely towards Karkat’s pale, skinny torso. “Very lean and h-healthy.”

“What the _fuck_ , Tavros.”

“J-just saying!” the wheelchair-bound teenager held up his hands in innocence, a small grin on his lips. He then placed his hands on his lap, and worried his bottom lip. “I-if it helps…I was on m-my way to G-Gamzee’s place…you can c-come with me i-if you want? If you p-push my chair, th-though.”

Karkat narrowed his eyes. “You fuckwad—why would I—“

“I’ll hold your sweater f-for you,” Tavros said with what seemed to be _confidence_? What was this freak up to? “And I’ll l-let you yell in-incoherently at me the entire t-time.”

“Huh.” Karkat rubbed his chin, considering it.

\----

“—AND WHO THE FUCK DOES HE THINK HE IS!” Karkat yelled, barely on the cusp of coherency as he, in his shirtless state, pushed Tavros through the streets towards the subcomplex where Gamzee lived. “I DON’T—I CAN’T FUCKING PROCESS THIS SHIT WHAT KIND OF SHITTY MOVE WAS THAT THAT SON OF A BITCH—“

“Strider s-sure is a bad guy,” Tavros agreed, but probably insincerely and only to appease Karkat.

Karkat appreciated the effort. “DAMN RIGHT HE’S A BAG GUY. TALK ABOUT THE FUCKING SMARMY COOL ANTAGONIST IN A ROMANTIC COMEDY—EXCEPT SHIT’S NOT FUNNY ANYMORE, IT’S JUST _RUDE_ , AND FUCK THAT GUY,” he continued. He took a break, though, because his voice was getting raspy, and at least seven people stared at him from their porches.

Tavros nodded. “Y-yeah!” God this fucker was so insincere, but his shitty enthusiasm made him almost impossible to completely despise. “B-but, can I ask a q-question?”

“Ugh,” Karkat replied, rolling his eyes.

“W-why did you try t-to give J-John Egbert a _cake_?”

Karkat frowned. “Why the fuck _wouldn’t_ I offer Egbert the delicious fruits of my baked efforts?” he demanded. “I mean, shit, is it a grand o-fucking-ffense to offer your first love cake, or did I leave Nazi Germany?”

“W-well,” Tavros cleared his throat, sounding appropriately nervous. “Y-yeah…it kind of is. John h- _hates_ baked things, dude. It’s, l-like, the f-foundation of his personality.”

Karkat stopped. “You’re fucking _lying_ ,” he hissed, and Tavros began to tremble in his wheelchair so Karkat tried to soften his tone. “That—that’s fucking ridiculous. No. Why would he hate cakes? That _makes no sense_ , Nitram!”

“S-something to do with his d-dad?” Tavros replied. The teen reached into the pocket on the side of his wheelchair and pulled out his phone, and immediately began typing several functions into it. Karkat continued to push him, still reeling from the _lies_ being spewed on his person. “Here! It’s his l-latest status—s-see what I m-mean?”

Tavros held his smartphone out to Karkat, who snatched it with a huff.

 _John Egbert: oh no cake, what a terrible invention! i mean, geez, i get sliced bread, but did someone really have to use flour for something so bad?_

And the status was liked by 15 people.

This _menial_ fucking shit. God bless John Egbert.

“Well, fuck,” Karkat furrowed his eyebrows, and plopped the phone back in Tavros’ lap. They were approaching Gamzee’s street, thank Christ. “How the fuck was I supposed to know this? Goddamn it! Now I look like some kind of total douche!”

Tavros looked around with a strange silence that was almost accusing.

But Karkat did not believe he would _dare_ accuse the person pushing his wheelchair across the street of such a thing. “If my foot accidentally kicks you into traffic,” Karkat said calmly. “It was just that—an _accident_.”

“Oh, w-wow, its Gamzee’s place!”

Karkat looked up, and hummed in surprise. It was fairly easy to tell Gamzee’s house from the rest of the cookie cut white middle-class architecture that made up the suburban complex.

For one, the shit looked grungy as _fuck_ on the outside, and the lawn was a source of trauma for all of his neighbors, and their neighbors, and so on. The mailbox was facing towards the house, for some inane reason, and the front door had a Christmas reef year round. With the bells and bows and everything.

However, in a way that seemed kind of…sweet, if Karkat could use that word without projectile vomiting—Gamzee had a wheelchair ramp over his porch. It was made of wood, and the ramp spelled “FO MY NIGGA TAV” in spray paint.

Karkat appreciated Gamzee’s existence…but he will never understand his shitty taste in rap music.

“How much do you want to bet his door is unlocked,” he asked Tavros rhetorically, and Tavros snorted in response. “Exactly.”

He wheeled Tavros down the path to the doorway and up the ramp, and the other teenager turned the knob. The door swung wide open—and, _what a fucking surprise_ , Gamzee was sitting in on his couch in his underwear, mixing pie filling.

He looked at them in surprise. “Oh fuck!” he greeted gleefully. “If it ain’t my two main motherfuckers—how are you doin’, bitches?”

Karkat pushed Tavros to the couch, where he immediately shared some elaborate, stupid looking handshake/hug/sexual harassment lawsuit in the making with Gamzee. Then he wandered towards Gamzee’s bedroom, rubbing his bare arms irritably. “I’m borrowing a shirt, fuck you if you try to stop me,” he yelled, and attacked the drawers.

He found a nice black t-shirt, though it said some “BASED GOD” shit that frankly made no sense to him, and pulled it over his head.

The skinny teen walked back into the living room, and plopped down on the couch with a groan. “Thanks a fucking lot for leaving early, by the way,” he said to Gamzee, who was dipping his finger in the filling and putting dots of it on Tavros’ face. Tavros giggled. “Jesus _fucking_ Christ, Gamzee!”

“What?” Gamzee asked, giving him a confused look. “I’m putting peaches on my brotha’s face. Is that a motherfuckin’ issue?”

Karkat smacked his forehead and dragged the hand down in frustration. “Talking to you is like talking to an unintelligent member of society,” he said. “Oh _wait_.”

“So I heard you tried to give John Egbert a motherfuckin’ _cake_ ,” Gamzee replied, pursing his lips as he dabbed another peach flavored dot on Tavros’ nose. “Since we’re gonna be talkin’ about motherfuckin’ unintelligent members of society and shit. John fuckin’ hates cakes, my main man—more than me, and that’s sayin’ a _lot_.”

Karkat flushed, and crossed his arms with no small amount of petulance. “How the _fuck_ was I supposed to know that he didn’t like cake!” he raged. “Did I miss the neon sign blinking on his dopey smile? _Oh, gosh world, it turns out I’m not a huge fan of cakes like I am a huge fan of pranking and being ridiculously good looking on any given occasion_!”

“I don’t th-think he sounds like that,” Tavros said.

“I don’t think Peter Pan is real!” Karkat retorted. “Unfortunately, you suffer from delusions unlike any _I’ve_ ever seen, so I guess we can just agree to disagree!”

“I d-don’t believe in Peter Pan,” Tavros countered with furrowed eyebrows. “That’s a r-rumor Vriska made to f-fuck with me.”

Karkat could believe Vriska would do that. Especially since Vriska was the one who told him, along with several clearly photoshopped pictures of Tavros frolicking with the imaginary boy.

Maybe that was a sign she was lying? Who actually cares?

“John’s dislike of cake is legit the most obvious fuckin’ thing on that kid,” Gamzee continued, shaking his head. “And you say you _like_ this guy? Motherfucker, you’d best find another young white kid to kill. Then again…John _does_ act like fuckin’ cake is murder. Maybe you’re better at this motherfucking shit than you thought!” Gamzee gave him a thumb up in support.

Karkat was abruptly reminded of the events from forty minutes ago. “No, I need to inform you about fucking _Dave Strider_ and his psychosis of the day!” he exclaimed.

“ _Jesus_ ,” Tavros whispered.

Karkat ignored that. “Okay, I get it—John Egbert’s likes include dogs, long walks on the beach, and _not goddamn cake_ ,” he started, dragging his fingers through his thick black hair. “ _However_ , when I offer my one and only love a slice of strawberry sprinkle cake, I’d _much_ rather hear _him_ tell me, _oh Karkat, I’m so gosh darn sorry, but I don’t like cake uh durrrr_ , than have the cake _smashed into my fucking sweater_ by Dave shithead Strider.”

“Still d-don’t think he sounds like that,” Tavros said.

“Harsh,” Gamzee hummed, mixing his pie filling once more.

“What a fucking _dick_ ,” Karkat snarled. “I mean, Jesus Christ, how can _anyone_ be such a douche and not get stoned by society!”

“Yeah, I can see what you mean,” Gamzee agreed. “But, shit man, Dave Strider’s one fine ass motherfucker.”

 _What_.

Karkat and Tavros shared a look of extreme confusion and slight disgust. Though, why Tavros was disgusted, he didn’t understand.

“Dave… _Strider_?” Karkat spoke carefully, trying to make sure he heard him correctly.

Gamzee shrugged. “Motherfucker’s mad hot,” he said simply. “I’d hit it. I’d hit it _hard_.”

“I’m going to barf,” Karkat said, and stood up shakily.

His friend blinked at him. “I’m making two pies,” he said. “If you wanna wait—I’ll make you a crabcake.”

Gamzee’s idea of a crabcake was getting imitation crab, seasoning it, and then surrounding it with pie crust.

“Fuck your _terrible_ taste in humans,” Karkat hissed, sitting back down. It was his damn weakness, those ‘crabcakes.’

Tavros nodded rapidly. “I d-don’t know what to say,” he said, looking down.

Gamzee huffed. “Just say you like motherfuckin’ peach pie,” he replied. He grinned at the boy in the wheelchair this whacky, wide smile that exposed his surprisingly perfect teeth, and Karkat did not understand how anyone could look so sincerely happy. “It’s no big thing, Tav’.”

“W-word,” Tavros said with a small, but equally joyous smile. They shared a fist bump, and all was well.

Karkat didn’t understand anything that was happening anymore.

“Oh, Karkat,” Tavros looked at him, his brown eyes bright with wonder and shit. “I was w-wondering, what were you doing n-next, for the murder of J-John?”

Before Karkat could snarl that, for fuck’s sake, he _wasn’t_ killing John Egbert, Gamzee piped up with a, “Yeah, what is your next motherfuckin’ master plan, Brokat?”

Karkat scowled. “As today’s ‘cake incident’ has taught me,” he grumbled. “I think I need to find out more about John Egbert—find out what makes him tick and shit.”

“Huh,” Gamzee hummed. “How the fuck you gonna do that?”

That was the same question Karkat was asking.

 _Shit_.

 **end three**


	4. four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do u kno wat I luv
> 
> winter break
> 
> do u kno wats gona end soon
> 
> my opinions on American politics
> 
> COLLEGESTUCK MOTHAFUCKA as in I am stuck in school again sadface
> 
> also due to an extreme amount of confusion on my part and mebbe yurz, I gotta say that I hope u guize r aware dat karkat’s gonna wise up reel soon, since da hol point of dis stori is dat dis is a ridikulus idea

Karkat woke up in the middle of the night abruptly aware of three things.

One, he was in the same bed as Gamzee in only a t-shirt and red boxers, and he didn’t even remember falling asleep in Gamzee’s _house_. Two, Gamzee was spooning him from behind with a long arm wrapped around his waist, and lanky legs tangling with his slightly shorter limbs.

And, three, he had a great fucking idea for research on John Egbert’s likes, dislikes, and fears.

But the first two things were the most important right now.

Karkat, with eyes wide open, hissed in hopefully a whisper, “Gamzee— _Gamzee_!”

Gamzee snuffled into the nape of his neck, and ran his hand against Karkat’s stomach, and this was _definitely_ considered sexual harassment if Karkat’s ever been touched inappropriately. And once a guy’s played Seven Minutes in Heaven with Terezi—he’s been touched inappropriately.

“For christ’s sake,” Karkat jabbed his elbow into Gamzee’s taut belly, causing the other male to reel back, coughing.  

Gamzee opened one eye, looking as irritable as possible for a dopey faced moron could look. “Whajjago’on muddafugga,” he mumbled, huffing.

“Gamzee, you stupid fuck,” Karkat whispered angrily. “Did you drug my fucking crabcakes again?!”

“Huh? Yeah,” Gamzee yawned. “Ya needed ta chillsvilles. Go back t’ schleep you funny fucka.”

If this asswipe slipped another fucking mickey into his dinner, Karkat was going to file a police report for the bad touch.

He paused, frowning. “Wait, where the hell is Nitram?” he demanded. It would be _really_ fucked up if Gamzee just sent the kid all the way back home near the Downtown area alone—especially after nine. Not because their suburban town was dangerous or anything fucking hilarious like that, but because apparently it’s difficult as shit for Tavros to find a handicap-friendly bus at night.

Not that Karkat cared for him or anything—he just wanted the little asshole to keep Vriska off his nuts.

“Um…I’m in the b-bed too,” was the stammered whisper from the other side of Gamzee. Karkat didn’t know if this was a nightmare or—nope, it’s irrefutably a nightmare. Never mind. “The p-party didn’t wind d-down until, uh, twelve.”

“What fucking party?” Karkat growled. He couldn’t believe he was currently sleeping on a fucking Queen-sized bed with Gamzee and Tavros, with Gamzee’s thankfully boxer-clad dick rubbing all over his back and his teeth sleepily nibbling on his neck. “The one where Gamzee, the kind son of a fucking dick, drugs a poor man’s crabcake and you two whacky wigger fruitcakes feed each other slices of delicious fucking pie? Sounds like a _great_ fucking party Tavros—I sure do regret being knocked out for it! I mean, shit, pie and horrible rap music—what else could I goddamn want?!” He shoved Gamzee off of him, scowling unhappily. “And stop that rubbing and touching shit! I am so fucking _peeved_ with you right now, Gamzee Makara!”

Gamzee opened the one eye again and scratched at the hair at the base of his stomach. “Dis da reason I _drugged_ yer mothafuckin’ ass,” he slurred, head slumping to the side. “You’ll take da fillin’ outta baked pie, fuckin’ Karmex. Take’a dip in the _cool pool_ , motherfucka.”

Karkat opened his mouth, then closed it with a furrowed brow, and opened it again. “That made no fucking sense,” he snapped, albeit quieter than usual. “You—I— _Gamzee_ —“

“Cool pool,” Gamzee slid his hand underneath Karkat’s shirt and slowly rubbed circles around his flat stomach. Karkat was extremely uncomfortable. ” _Cool_ pool.”

“If I _drown_ myself in that unregulated, grungy ass _shit_ pool,” Karkat bit out, sucking in his stomach in an effort to escape Gamzee’s well meaning but incredibly impersonal hands. “Will you stop touching me?”

Gamzee pat his stomach once more and brought his hand away. “Yeah,” he replied with a wide yawn.

Karkat let out the breath he was holding, and collapsed back onto the bed. “Thank you,” he said tersely, and he closed his eyes in hopes he could go back to sleep and wake up from this nightmare. Gamzee shifted next to him, and Tavros made a snuffling sound somewhere on the other side of the bed.

 _Thank fucking baby Jesus nobody knows I slept with two guys this night,_ Karkat thought with a wrinkle of his aquiline nose.

He sat up suddenly. “Wait, guys, _guys_ ,” he whispered, poking Gamzee on the bare chest. “Guys, I have an idea—and I need your advice.”

“How about you go back to fuckin’ sleep,” Gamzee suggested. “And we can talk about this in the morn’…I ain’t got much brain juice left for your shit, not even gonna lie.”

“And y-you, uh, kind of yell a lot,” Tavros replied, looking at him with innocent, large brown eyes. That pitifully adorable son of a bitch. “And I k-kinda just w-wanna sleep.”

“You useless fuckers,” Karkat conceded. He laid back down in the bed, and shut his eyes with a scowl. “But you’ll be hearing about this shit tomorrow, you shitcaked assholes.”

“Ew,” Tavros grunted.

“I don’t even motherfuckin’ doubt it,” Gamzee replied.

Soon, they all went back to sleep, and a less drugged Karkat coherently dreamt of blue eyes and beautiful smiles and kissing John Egbert on the mouth.

\----

When Karkat woke up in the afternoon, he opened Gamzee’s laptop and checked his Chumpage. Much to his surprise, he had 57 notifications—and according to half of those, he’d been tagged in a shitload of pictures.

He clicked one of the picture notifications.

And exploded. Metaphorically.

“ _GAMZEE YOU THRICE-GAGGED DICK CHOKER_ ,” he bellowed. “ _WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE?!_ ”

Gamzee and Tavros apparently put a cone shaped party hat on Karkat’s head while the teen was unconscious, and took a series of pictures of themselves doing ridiculous poses with Karkat or Karkat forced into ridiculous poses that he obviously couldn’t refuse doing considering he was cataleptic at the time.

And then they put all the pictures on Chumpage… _and tagged him in them_.

Karkat, red-faced and trembling with rage like he’d never felt, looked at the comments on a couple of the pictures.

 _Vriska Sekret: hahahahahahahaha talk a8out a sexy party!!!!!!!! hey, creepkat, do you do 8ar mitzvahs?_

 _Dave Strider: it’s like you can hear the quiet coming off this guy in thick wafting waves of silent lakes and forests and shit wow shit i never knew he could be anti-loud_

 _Nepeta ‘PurrfectPrincess’ Leijon: :33 aww he’s SO cute!! karkat can you love me instead but without the meowder?? >.< _ 

Meowder? Karkat blinked, sitting back. The fuck did _that_ mean?

Then he remembered it was coming from Nepeta Leijon, which meant it was some anime kawaii neko shit that nobody was meant to understand but her and possibly but debatably Equius. Karkat sometimes believed she was casting curses whenever she made a cat pun, because she would say things that even he had to shake his head in confusion at.

“Hey motherfucker,” Gamzee greeted as he walked into the living room. He yawned loosely, scratching his chest. “What’s the issue, Brokat?”

Karkat pointed at the computer. “What, _what_ the fuck is this?” he demanded. “Why the hell did you do this? How the fuck did you get all these pictures—and _where_ in the 7 layers of hell did you find a _party hat_?!”

Gamzee smiled at him. “How about you tell me, man?” he replied, pointing at Karkat’s head.

“What the _fu_ —what.” Karkat felt the top of his hair, and there was a paper cone party hat _still_ on his head, tilted to the side. He felt his will to live slowly slipping away. “Why do you do this to me? Why? _Why_?”

“Because I fuckin’ love you man,” Gamzee sat down next to Karkat, and shot his arms out in an all-encompassing embrace that Karkat did _not_ want to fucking deal with right now. “C’mon, hug me back you angry-faced motherfucker.”

Karkat ignored the request and returned to Chumpage. He clicked the final picture he was tagged in—and, wow.

 _Wow_.

“If my life were a bakery,” Karkat started in a slow growl. “Your irresponsible actions would’ve taken all of the _fucking cake_ , you flabby bag of crusty, day old _shit_!”

Gamzee grimaced. “Kinda gross, not gonna lie.”

Karkat didn’t give a _fuck_ if he thought the insult was gross. He was much too busy plotting the destruction of this unhealthy friendship based on the picture in front of his face right now.

It was a photo of the three teenagers on Gamzee’s bed, with a shirtless and boxer-clad Karkat nearly comatose in the middle and Gamzee and Tavros flanking his sides while also lacking shirts and pants. Karkat’s head lolled to the side, and a thin line of drool was escaping his lips, while Gamzee, who was holding the camera away from them, made the fucking _duck face_ while cuddling up to Karkat. Tavros was also making that fucking ridiculous puckered lip expression, with his fingers in a peace sign in front of his face.

23 people liked the picture. Karkat refreshed the page. _25_ , never mind.

“Uh…you’re not too mad, are y-you, Karkat?” and there wheeled in the fucking weenie now—that paraplegic son of a bitch. Tavros has to know Karkat can’t explode in rage confetti on him without looking like a huge, bulging dick, because he keeps using that shit to his advantage.

“Am I too mad—of course not, Nitram,” Karkat replied. He shoved at Gamzee’s arms violently with snarling sounds and clawed hands, and his friend finally released him. “I’m fucking _livid_! Jesus Fuck, it’s like the reason everyone I know exists is to fuck with my life! And, fuck you Nitram, I’m always mad!” It wasn’t like he was going to lie to himself and other people. “Why the hell would you _ask_ that?”

Tavros cleared his throat nervously, and shared a significant look with Gamzee.

“W-well…” he began, darting his eyes around. “I’m sure y-you’ve seen the pictures w-we took during l-last night’s, um, party…”

Karkat stared at him. “That wasn’t a party, Nitram,” he said slowly, his right eyebrow ticking. “That was _date rape_. You drugged me, put a party hat on me, and forced me into activities that have _wrecked_ me mentally for the rest of my desolate, shitty life.” He turned back to the computer and checked the rest of his notifications. Then he froze, _again_. “Did…did you two disgusting piles of wasted sperm…make this your profile picture?”

Tavros nodded excitedly. “S-see, that’s the th-thing!” he stuttered, grinning widely. “G-Gamzee and I w-were wondering if y-you’d, um, also change your p-profile picture to it...?”

“Uh, no,” Karkat scoffed at the idea. “You touch me inappropriately and then you want me to change my profile to the evidence? The police will have a field fucking day with you, Shitram.”

Gamzee looked unfathomably sad. “But…we could all fuckin’ match, man!” he insisted, gripping Karkat’s shoulders and shaking him. “We could be, like, the three motherfuckin’ mexarachis or whatever!”

“Madarachi’s you moron!” Karkat corrected, slapping at Gamzee’s long hands. “And then you got that wrong—fuck, you are so dumb it’s mentally retarding _me_. You probably meant the Three Caballeros, idiot.”

“But are you gonna change your picture is the fuckin’ question, so...?” Gamzee stared at him, his words trailing off.

“No I’m not gonna change—“ _John Egbert commented on a picture you were tagged in._ Karkat froze at that notification—John Egbert has never commented on any of his statuses or pictures before. He’s _liked_ them, sure, but actual digitalized words are a pleasure Karkat’s never been privy to. “…”

 _John Egbert: ha ha ha wow karkat! you look great bro! i really like the party hat—it really brings out your shindig participation! ha ha ha_

Karkat blinked, somewhat mystified.

“So…?” Gamzee urged, looking all the fucking pitiful and sad like he was the one being wronged right now.

Tavros wasn’t making a better expression. “P-please Karkat,” he begged.

Karkat bared his teeth, scowled and snarled at the computer, and changed his profile picture.

“S-sweet!” Tavros said excitedly.

Gamzee hugged Karkat. “My motherfuckin’ best friend,” he murmured.

Karkat was so fucking sick of this shit.

\----

“All right you nefarious chunks of squirming flesh,” he started as soon as he changed into more appropriate clothes that didn’t remind him of his ‘unforgettable’ night. “Now it’s Uncle Karkat’s turn to talk—Gamzee, if you don’t put that pie crust down, I will cull your entire fucking bloodline.”

Gamzee, staring at him with wide, make-up caked eyes, slowly placed the pie crust on the counter. “Uh,” he replied.

Karkat narrowed his golden eyes, but continued speaking, “So, I came to a genius epiphany last night,” he said, plopping down in a dining room chair. “Yes, this is the one where you ungrateful fruitcakes rudely interrupted me and told me to go the fuck to sleep. On that note: fuck you, Nitram—I can be as loud as I want!”

“B-but, um, I was t-trying to sleep…”

“ _As loud as I want_ ,” Karkat repeated in a low hiss. He cleared his throat. “Anyway. I realized that it’s really fucking hard to pretend to kill your first love when you, one, have only seen one shitty horror film in your wasted life and you’re getting all your advice from Troogle, your crappy father, and the _Golden Girls_. And, two, when you don’t actually know very much about John fucking Egbert to really strike enough fear into his heart in order to lure him into your arms.”

“…Err,” Gamzee blinked slowly. “Which shitty scary movie did you actually see, motherfucker?”

“Sex and the City,” Karkat replied. He shuddered at the memory—even to this day, Sarah Jessica Parker scares the fuck out of him with her unfeigned neighing and terrible risqué encounters in her large urban metropolis.

Tavros and Gamzee shared a look of confusion. “Sex and the City isn’t—“ the paraplegic teenager started, but Karkat was pretty fucking sure this guy wouldn’t know a terrifying film if it fondled him in the nuts.

“So I need to find a way to learn more about Egbert,” Karkat said, crossing his arms. “Now the floor is open to your incredibly irrelevant and most likely traumatizing incorrect opinions. Yes, Gamzee? And no, you can’t make a fucking pie right now while I’m talking,” He pointed at the tall teen, whose raised hand faltered.

“Well shit, man,” Gamzee grumbled, looking disgruntled. “I’mma make a motherfuckin’ pie anyway, but I gotta question. Has anyone told you that this ‘pretend to kill John shit’ is mad motherfuckin’ stupid? Because it is. And this is comin’ from me—I almost let a pie stay in the oven for 2 minutes more time than usual.”

Karkat furrowed his brow. “That isn’t—I don’t—okay,” he shook his head, immediately giving up. He glared at his ‘best friend’ (fuck _that_ terminology). “Anyway. I have multiple text messages dicking about on my phone informing me on how supposedly _stupid_ I am, this plan is, and my dad sent me one asking me to not tell the police he had anything to with this daffy fucking idea.”

Karkat, of course, texted back that his dad had nothing to worry about after he told child services that he had the worse fucking father of all time and hopefully he was arrested for being a piece of shit. His father’s final text was a simple ‘ _lol._ ’

“Then…um,” Tavros looked around awkwardly. “W-why are you d-doing it?”

“Why am I—I’m not going through this shit again!” Karkat snapped, smacking his forehead. “If I have to write an impassioned fucking speech about my crippling social awkwardness—“

“S-so you know about it?”

“—my great looks but stilted self esteem—“

“Don’t seem very motherfuckin’ stilted to me.”

“—and probably three other flaws that I know of, I’m going to shoot myself in my _loud fucking_ maw, _Tavros_.” Karkat threw a side-eyed glare at the wheelchair-bound boy, who looked appropriately shamed. “So, in a pretty ingenious subplan that can only come from me, I’m going to force myself to… _talk_ ,” he spat out the word, and it still left a nasty taste in his mouth. “To Egbert’s gleeful gaggle of wasted ovary eggs. And you two are going to help me.”

Gamzee blinked. “Are you sure I can’t just bake a fuckin’ pineapple pie,” he asked. “Because peach is a really popular flavor and I’m gettin’ kinda sick of all these motherfuckin’ peach requests.”

Tavros seemed to steadily ignore his friend. It was a good call. “N-no offense, Karkat,” which immediately caused Karkat to take offense, “But…um, I d-don’t wanna get c-caught up in this. W-what if the police a-arrest me as, uh, an a-accomplice? It’s h-hard to fight off sh-shanking in a w-wheelchair.”

“And the prize for _Phenomenal Moron_ goes to Fagros,” Karkat replied calmly. “For following the ridiculous train of thought that I will _kill_ John Egbert. How does it feel to be a fucking idiot, Tavros?”

Tavros, the good sport, opened his mouth, and then closed it once more.

He realized it was easier to just not talk, which is something Karkat has been trying to educate his associates on for the longest time.

“If I had to change my profile picture to a metaphorical sexual assault victim with a bad case of the dickbags,” Karkat said. “Then you two shit guzzlers are going to help me talk to Jade fucking Harley.”

Gamzee, who had moved to the refrigerator, dropped the milk in his hand in shock. “Dude,” he whispered. “That’s a motherfuckin’ whole watermelon in a delicious, crispy crust—shit’s not gonna happen, bruh.”

Tavros’ eyes were wider than ever. “K-Karkat,” he started, fiddling with his pant seams. “That…that’s…uh, you know th-that Jade Harley…h-hates you…right?”

Karkat scoffed at the hilarity of his accusation. “That’s fucking ridiculous,” he deadpanned. “She can’t possibly hate me—I’ve done nothing to the fuckfaced Cambodian immigrant.”

“You told h-her she had a b-better chance going t-to prom with h-her dog than an, uh, a-actual human m-male,” his friend explained. “You a-also th-threw her, um, pet fr-frog into th-the ocean, and then t-told her she w-was an i-idiot for t-trying to r-raise a frog when sh-she couldn’t e-even raise the b-bar on a-acceptable fashion.”

“That’s not a good reason to hate a guy, Jesus Christ,” Karkat furrowed his brow. “And even then, I got her a new fucking frog and taught her how to raise the shit properly—how could _anyone_ hate me after that tedious fucking shit?”

 _Very Easily_ , Tavros’s gaze seemed to say. _Very Easily Indeed._

Well, whatever.

“She told you sh-she hated you,” Tavros said. “R-repeatedly.”

“I don’t remember that shit, sorry.”

“Sh-she wrote an essay on why y-you are the, uh, w-worst human being t-to ever b-be cursed upon this E-Earth,” he continued. “And sh-she got it p-published in the, um, s-school p-paper. And then taped th-the article to your l-locker.”

Karkat frowned. Why would she do that? And why didn’t he remember this happening? “Why the fuck don’t I remember any of this?” he demanded.

“Y-you got, um, so mad th-that you blacked out in r-rage?” Tavros said uncertainly.

That sounded valid. That sounded _very_ valid.

Fuck, Karkat should really work on that—who knew what other kind of shit he was forgetting due to the extreme amount of _anger_ he felt every fucking day of his pathetic life.

“Huh,” he huffed, rolling his eyes. “Well that was uncalled for, the stupid vag grabber. And, after doing something that incredibly insensitive, she can’t still be pissed at me.”

Gamzee snorted, a milk moustache decorating his upper lip. Not that anyone could see it well with all that fucking make up. “Jade Harley fuckin’ _hates_ you, man,” he chortled, shaking his head. “Her hatred of you makes cake look like John’s motherfuckin’ dessert delight. You are _shit_ out of luck, my main man.”

Karkat smirked for the first time in a while.

Tavros cringed at the sight of it, so it probably didn’t look as nefarious or sly as he thought it did. Fuck, time to change expressions— _shit_.

Karkat frowned in pleasure.

“And that, my mentally handicapped and physically handicapped life failures,” he said haughtily. “That is where _you_ come in.”

\----

Jade Harley was the kind of girl that would star in Karkat’s lesbian fantasies—if he weren’t too busy thinking about John Egbert like twenty four fucking seven.

She was tall—well, his height—slimly built, nice Eurasian face, kinda fucked teeth, and glasses Karkat hadn’t seen since _Weird Science_. Honestly, he thought she was one of the less disastrous examples of the female gender, and while she didn’t know golly green _fuck_ about raising frogs—she was pretty smart.

However, he still hated her.

And apparently the feeling was equal, as she glared at him the moment he and his crew (“the _Clown Crip Crab Crew_ ,” Gamzee had insisted with a mouthful of _dumb shit to say_ and pie) walked into the town’s mainframe teenage hangout spot.

 _S-BuRB ArCaDE_. The alternating case in the type was inexplicable to even the smartest Lalonde.

“Th-there she i-is,” Tavros whispered like the taller teen didn’t fucking see her. “R-right there, Karkat.”

“Oh right,” Karkat rolled his eyes. “I forgot about your abysmal taste in the opposite sex. Didn’t you used to have a crush on this psycho?”

Tavros blushed a pale pink, and shook his head. “I-It was an optical, um, illusion,” he replied sadly. “Of l-love.”

“For fuck’s sake—obviously you’re going to be the most ineffectual piece of shit, so we’re going with Plan Pie,” he turned to Gamzee at that, who was gazing rather obviously at Equius, whom of which was playing that shitty Japanese dancing game with Nepeta and sweating like pedophile at a playground. Once Karkat got sight of the creep’s glistening, bulging muscles—he could sort of but not fucking really understand Gamzee’s focus. “Gamzee, you never cease to amaze me with your even _worst_ taste in the same sex— _Equius Zahrak_? He has a DVD of fucking horses— _fucking_.”

“I’d eat a slice of fuckin’ pie off his abs,” Gamzee replied. With no goddamn shame.

Tavros grimaced, but Karkat could respect that. “Don’t—don’t tell him that,” he said with a pinched expression of disgust. “He might strip in the middle of _Kawaii Sugoi Candy Yay_ , and Nepeta would kill him if they stopped in the middle of her shitty Japanese dance music.” He was referring to, of course, the only crush in their school that could top his love on John Egbert, and that was Equius Zahhak’s unwavering homoerotic devotion to Gamzee because of Gamzee’s inevitable blue blood status.

For a gay pothead baker all but abandoned by his foster father—Gamzee Makara was fucking _rich_ , and everyone knew it.

“Uh _huh_ ,” Gamzee clicked his tongue in interest. “I’mma fuckin’ remember that shit.” He took a step towards the dance machine—but Karkat grabbed the back of his shirt before anything outside of his plan could occur.

“How about _no_ ,” Karkat hissed, shoving his friend forward. “We’re not here to play shitty first person zombie shooters or mack on disgusting captains of the Wresting Team—we’re here for _Karkat_. Me. Helping _me_.”

Gamzee stared at him. “Okay,” he replied. “Then what the fuck am I supposed to do?”

Karkat clapped his friend on the shoulder like his dad would do to him when he wanted his son to go on a beer run. “It’s pretty fucking simple—at least, for your miniscule dick for brain,” he said. “You’re just going to go to Jade Harley, and you’re going to ask her for information on John Egbert. Then, you report back to the pinball machine—and you’ll tell me everything, okay idiot?”

“Notta motherfuckin’ problem, bro,” his tall friend replied, smacking him on the back jovially. Karkat sucked back a hiss—that shit _hurt_. “Catch you in a minute—peace.” And he sauntered towards Harley like it was no big deal.

But it was a deal. It was actually a big deal.

Tavros cleared his throat. “S-so…” he started carefully. “C-can I go play games o-or…”

“You unsupportive rolling ball of shit,” Karkat growled. “Go play your LARPs, loser—and, while you’re at it, how about you _get laid_?”

Tavros looked like he wanted to roll his eyes but remembered he was too nice for that. “S-see ya later,” he replied, and rolled towards the LARP tables. Predictable wad of shit.

So Karkat Vantas was left alone in the dark, dank corner of S-BuRB ArCaDE next to the pinball machine, watching his best friend chat up with his third worst enemy after Dave Strider and Bluhflix streaming movies. It was weird, he decided, watching Gamzee talk to Harley and Lalonde and make them smile and laugh and act generally pleasant towards the tall, lanky dickbag.

He never did understand why he could never communicate as well with members of the opposite sex—that’s probably why he gave up on them. That and the fact that Terezi traumatized the living fuck out of him.

Karkat returned his attention to Gamzee and the Girls, ignoring the potential for a terrible rock group with that name, and began fidgeting uncomfortably as Gamzee languidly walked back.

“So?!” he demanded as soon as Gamzee was within arm’s length—and he must’ve found something good based on the huge dopey smile on his face. “What?!”

“Man, I always knew it, man,” Gamzee replied, shaking his head in disbelief. Karkat’s eyes were wide in anticipation. “I would always look at that motherfucker and think, she totally would—but I never got the chance to fuckin’ ask. But I was _right_ , man—I was so fuckin’ _right_ , ugh I can’t even dig it I am so right.”

Karkat wanted to shake the air out of him. “What about her? What did you find out?!” he pleaded.

“Jade motherfuckin’ Harley,” Gamzee said grandly, “likes Pumpkin Pie.”

If Karkat were _really_ a murderer—Gamzee wouldn’t even know what stabbed him in the larynx multiple times.

Unfortunately, he is just a fake murderer—and if you want something done you obviously have to ask Jade goddamn Harley your _self_.

“It was so fuckin’ _obvious_ , really—“

“Get—just get the hell out of my way,” Karkat cut him off, shoving past the taller teen and stalking towards one of the many banes of his existence.

When he arrived, however, he was met by an unexpected and entirely unwanted guest.

“Huh,” Dave _FUCkksdjsf_ Strider cocked an eyebrow over those fucking shades. “You in a rush, Creepkat? I mean—sorry, Karkat. I couldn’t recognize you without the quiet.”

“Or the party hat,” Harley added with a large grin.

“Or the comatose state of unconsciousness,” Lalonde finished. “But we don’t hold that against you.”

“I forgot I was dealing with triplets physically connected by the fucking balls,” Karkat said blandly, rolling his eyes. He sneered, though, at Strider in particular. “I’d better take a step back, though—I’d _hate_ for my friend’s shirt to get smothered with cake and your _douche_ simultaneously.”

Strider’s face did this…thing. Karkat also found it hard to explain because it would be an embarrassed blush on anyone but Dave Strider, so he had no idea what to call it on the actual culprit.

“Listen, dude,” Strider started, rubbing the back of his neck nervously(?). “What I did yesterday was a total dick move—like, even for _me_ , that was a total douche move. That shit was definitely not called for—it wasn’t even ordered online, and I was chewed out for a fuckin’ hour by Egderp for being such a huge dick. And even though it’s chillin’ in my pants—it shouldn’t define me as a person.”

Karkat gaped.

What the fuck was going on here?

Strider opened his arms. “Bro hug?” he offered.

Karkat thought the ground had crumbled under his off-brand black skater shoes, and hell had dragged him down through seven agonizing levels.

“What,” he squeaked.

Strider then wrapped his arms around Karkat and pulled him close. “Real sorry,” he said loudly. Everyone in the arcade was staring in shock right now, and Karkat couldn’t blame them. He was damn near catatonic himself—especially after Strider pats his back in a way that could be misconstrued as _friendly_.

Until Strider leaned in and whispered into his ear, “I’m onto you, Creepkat,” he hissed. “You are mad fucking suspect right now, and if I have to Sherlock Holmes the living shit out of your shenanigans—for my boy John, you know I will.”

He let a semi-shocked and mostly enraged Karkat go. “See you later, man,” he said with a final slap on his shoulder. He turned to his friends and gave them a single nod. “I’mma catch you lovely ladies later—its movie night with Egderp, and you know how I like to get my cuddles on while Nicolas Cage saunters seductively through Mount Rushmore.”

With that, Dave Strider ambled out the arcade like the coolest motherfucker on Earth.

Karkat continued to gape after him.

“That…” Harley started with a cocked eyebrow. “That was a surprise!” She giggled, and Karkat turned back to her with what must’ve been a horror struck expression mixed with fury, because she only laughed harder. “Oh man Karkat, you look like you’ve been suckerpunched in the crotch!”

“I,” Karkat croaked, rubbing his face in hopes the horror would eventually disappear. “I…don’t fucking know what just happened.”

Lalonde shook her head. “At times,” she replied in her forever calm, articulate voice. “I want to call the staggeringly uproarious effect he leaves on respectable members of the human race, the _Strider Effect_.”

“Aren’t you his cousin?” Karkat demanded, narrowing his eyes at the blond girl.

She shrugged. “In some principalities, I’d suppose so,” she said.

Harley had finally stopped laughing long enough to look at Karkat, and he was not comfortable with that expression of smug satisfaction coupled with a glint of wicked joy in her eyes.

What happened to her old dumb facial expression, jesus _Christ_.

“So Douchekat shows himself,” she said with a grin. “After years of torture and just being really irritated at your presence—you finally crawl to me for help! I call vindication!” She held her hand up for a high five, but the bitch was clearly crazy if she thought she was getting one from Karkat Vantas.

“Is this about that fucking frog,” Karkat demanded. “Because I thought you were over that shit, but obviously I was hoping for too much by asking you to build a fucking bridge over it.”

Harley blinked. “You don’t think you only threw my frog, do you?” she asked perplexedly. “Karkat, you are honestly one of the most aggravating people I have met in my life! When we had English last year, I asked you for a pencil and you told me to eat out a dog!”

Karkat smacked his forehead in exasperation. “None of you, except probably Lalonde, ever return my fucking pencils!” he stressed. “I am running out of fucking writing utensils to continue my education effectively, and your jolly crew of adolescent damn popularity keeps taking the shit from me!”

“You tripped me in P.E. in sophomore year! While we were diving for the pool!”

“I was trying to help your shitty form, you ungrateful, pungent shithole.”

“Rather disgusting imagery,” Lalonde commented, but he ignored her.

Harley shook her head in disbelief. “Karkat, you’re a socially awkward jerk!” she exclaimed, hands on her hips. “I mean, jeez! Even the way you _talk_ to people is totally rude—even _John_ , and you’re madly in love with him!”

Karkat froze in horror. “How the fuck did you find out about that?!” he hissed.

Lalonde and Harley shared a look of confusion. “It’s, how should I phrase this appropriately,” Lalonde said, worrying her purple-painted bottom lip, “It’s very obvious.”

“You didn’t find out because of Kanaya or anything?” Karkat demanded. Because if she did—he was going to talk to her firmly and explain the concept of personal business.

“Well, no, but—“

“Karkat, the only thing more obvious than your crush on John,” Harley interrupted Lalonde with a shake of the head. “Is your former crush on Terezi—“

“Will anyone forget about that shit?! It was in sophomore year, it is _over_ , and she reciprocated that shit if you will all recall!” he raged loudly.

“—and even if I didn’t think it was totally adorable, I would still call you out on being a total dick for no reason!” Harley said.

Karkat scowled. He had _plenty_ of reasons to be a dick to people—maybe if humankind would stop being so ridiculously _irritating_ , he’d stop being so irritated.

“So,” he began carefully, trying to school his expression into one of not anger. “Does this mean you won’t help me with Egbert?”

Harley laughed lightly. “Kill him? Of course not!” she replied jovially. Karkat’s face immediately darkened in wrath, but she continued, “But! I may be able to help you ask him out…if you do something for me.”

Karkat blinked. “Do _what_ , exactly?” he asked.

“Well…” Harley looked at Lalonde, who rolled her eyes with a small smile. “…it won’t be too hard, I like to think!”

 **end four**


	5. five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so a shorter chapter for now sorry guys i just felt it was appropriate to stop
> 
> The past 2 chaps were necessary I pRoMiSe you shall see my deariez 
> 
> Yoooou shaaaaaall seeeeeee
> 
> ready 4 sum major KREEPCAT???

And now, a quick biography of Karkat Carmen Vantas the Third—like, _really quick_.

In 1993, he’s born all wrinkly and crying on a day he doesn’t announce to people but he keeps forgetting to take it off his Chumpage profile. Three years later, Karkat goes to Daycare, and is promptly tripped to fall flat on his face by one adorably nefarious Vriska Sekret. In first grade, Karkat punches Sollux Captor in the face over a gray crayon—and is promptly sent to anger management alternative classes.

Another four years pass, where Karkat gets into a fist fight with Equius Zahhak, and ends up in the emergency room nursing seven broken bones in all inconvenient parts of his body. Fast forward to eighth grade, where Karkat and Gamzee Makara get into a hilariously one-sided fight, as told by Vriska, and while Gamzee is choking the living shit out of Karkat, he decides that they should instead be best friends and Karkat lives another day. In tenth grade, Karkat gets a good kick in the nuts for April Fools’ via Terezi Pyrope, and cries for two hours in the girl’s bathroom.

In twelfth grade, Karkat Vantas gets roundhouse kicked by a dog. Repeatedly.

“ _FUCK_ —“ he cried out in pain as a large paw cut through the air and slammed his face to the ground. Holy fucking Christ this shit hurt like the Dickens or whatever the fuck hurts a lot. He held his cheek gingerly, and tried to fight the single tear that was struggling to slip by. “Auuugh…!”

The dog, Beezlebub—okay, fine, Becquerel—gazed down at him with cold, green eyes.

The garden hose continued to spurt water steadily into the grass.

The soap was also lying innocently next to Karkat’s defeated form.

“Bec!” Harley, the devil’s apprentice, called from the backyard door. She had her hands upon her hips like a housewife from some shitty old program on TV Land. “Are you giving Dickkat a hard time? It _is_ bath day, you crazy pup, and I asked him to wash you for a reason.” Probably because she was a _genius_ , _conniving_ bitch, Karkat thought.

Becquerel turned to the girl, and if he had eyebrows Karkat swore he would’ve been cocking those shits right now. “Woof,” he replied blandly, and stepped on Karkat’s face.

 _I will not explode I will not explode I will not explode_ , Karkat repeated the mantra in his head, grinding his teeth and scowling for all he was worth as the weight of the dog pushed him further against the ground.

Becquerel raised his leg in pissing motion.

Karkat exploded.

“ _THE FUCK YOU WILL!_ ” he bellowed, weakly getting to his knees. His cheek still throbbed, but that could be ignored during rage season. “ _IF YOUR PISS STICK DRIPS EVEN A MILLIMETER OF URINE ON ME, I WILL PERSONALLY CALL A FUCKING LANDSCAPER AND HAVE YOUR ENTIRE FUCKING DICK SLICED OFF WITH A CHAINSAW!_ ”

Becquerel stared at him, gaping in the way that only dogs could.

Harley also looked a little shocked.

Karkat crawled over to the hose. “I’m…I’m just going to clean you now,” he said, flushing in embarrassment. He sprayed the water on the dog, and Becquerel was apparently too shocked at the castration threat to bite off Karkat’s own balls for doing so.

The rest of the afternoon passed rather nicely, with Becquerel’s coat shiny and clean and Karkat only looking like he just stepped out of a cage fight.

He stumbled up to the backdoor and opened it angrily, and he was really fucking glad that Harley was already at the dining room table eating pie.

“Where the fuck did you get that pie?” he demanded to know. His hair was drenched and wild and he probably looked a little crazed himself but that was an unfortunate result of the Becquerel cleaning experience.

Harley looked up, surprised. “Oh, hey asshole!” she greeted brightly. “You just missed Gamzee—he came by to drop off this incredible pumpkin pie and your sweater!” Her face then dropped. “And also he asked me if Dave was bicurious.”

Karkat matched her expression perfectly. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he whispered, looking away with an expression of disgust. Though, he did return his gaze to her for a quick moment, to ask, “…Is he, though?”

“Boys are so weird!” Harley exclaimed, laughing. “Geez, is that question not odd at all to you guys?”

“So I guess he is,” Karkat concurred from her avoidance of the answer. She only laughed harder, and he remembered that he went through that terrible fucking ordeal for a reason. “Okay you sad sagging lump of underdeveloped mammary glands, I cleaned your _fucking dog_.” He narrowed his eyes. “We had a deal, vag hag.”

Harley, wrapping her arms around her chest none too subtly, frowned deeply. “You know Karkat, you’re a real asshole!” she exclaimed like he was completely unaware of this development. Karkat rolled his eyes— _on the next episode…_ “But you have no reason to be! You do know that people will probably like you more if you stopped insulting them at every possible moment, right? Maybe change your tone a little too!”

“I love the _Lifetime Move Network_ as much as the next member of society with a functional pair of testicles,” Karkat replied blandly. “But your sob story isn’t tickling my junk either. I’ll stop being an asshole when high school stops being the worst fucking place on earth and teenagers stop being the scientifically proven _least_ useful stage of human growth.” He huffed, looking away from her disappointed gaze. “And fuck you Harley—I’m _trying_ to be better about it with Egbert, at least.”

“But you called him a nut guzzler on Chumpage three hours ago,” Harley said.

Karkat cleared his throat, slightly embarrassed. “It’s a slow process,” he muttered.

Harley looked at him for a long while with this disappointed expression that simultaneously made Karkat want to kick her in the face and change his ways for the better. Luckily, neither of those urges fell through, and he sneered back at her.

“Okay,” she finally said with a heavy sigh. “I’ll give you what you want, Karkat. Under _two_ conditions!”

“Harley, you psychotic bitch, is your short term memory the length of a fucking ant? I just cleaned your _satanic excuse of a domesticated creature_ —“

“Condition one,” Harley cut him off. “You stop calling John rude names!” Karkat’s face dropped immediately. “I know I’d be asking for way too much if I asked you to stop calling _me_ rude things, but aren’t you madly in love with John or something? Act like it, Karkat!”

 _I am acting like it_ , Karkat wanted to say, but he also didn’t want any disparaging statements about Pseudo-Serialstuck and his apparent mission to ‘kill John Egbert’ to come up.

“And, condition two,” Harley held up two fingers, grinning widely and exposing her overbite. “You tell nobody I did this for you. _Nobody_. Not even Gamzee.”

“Well what the fuck are you going to give me with all these shitty conditions attached?” Karkat demanded, tired of this shit already. “Or am I going to sit here until you finished making up more fucking _conditions_ and _rules_ to block my cock?”

Harley grimaced. “Gross, Karkat,” she said, but then reached into her pocket and shuffled about. Eventually, she pulled out her cellular phone, which was some new age smartphone shit that Karkat frankly could care less about owning. “Give me your phone, Karkat!”

“If you Rick-Troll me—“

“Oh shut up and give me your phone,” Harley said impatiently, holding out her hand.

Karkat grumbled under his breath and reached into his back pant pocket to pull out his cellphone, and shoved it into her hands. “This better be so worth it,” he grumbled, rubbing his biceps as his face continued to throb from his earlier doggy-styled beatdown.

Wow that sounded really inappropriate. It’s fucking _great_ he didn’t say that out loud.

Harley’s tongue poked out kind of cutely as she did whatever the hell she was doing, but Karkat would never admit that out loud. “…and I’m done!” she exclaimed, smiling with legitimate glee. She handed him back his phone, which he took with a huge amount of suspicion and a scowl.

He flipped open the phone and glanced at the screen.

 _New Contact_ , the LCD screen read, _John Egbert: (XXX)555-1234_.

Karkat’s eyes became impossibly wide, like they were going to burst through his skull.

“Holy fuck,” he breathed.

Harley grinned. “And what do you say, Asskat?” she wheedled.

Karkat snapped the phone closed, and looked at her with the most serious, grateful look he had in his arsenal of decidedly angry expressions. “Harley, you humongous, ridiculous bitch,” he said. “If I weren’t completely fucking enamored with Egbert, I’d drop my pants for you. Right fucking _now_.”

“That’s all I wanted to hear,” Harley said smugly.

\----

It took a little more than twenty-four hours for Karkat to muster the cajones to actually _use_ the new number in his phone.

He paced back and forth that Sunday night in front of the house phone located against the wall in the living room, gnashing his teeth angrily and twitching like he had an advanced case of Parkinson’s.

His dad stared at him. “Mggrrh,” he said, tipping back his ever present can of beer.

Karkat stopped, his brow furrowed in question. “What the hell are you talking about, dad?” he demanded. “I’m pacing in front of the phone because I’m trying to figure out what the fuck I’m supposed to do with all this fucking newfound knowledge!” His cellphone was clenched within his fingers tightly. “Not that you’d know anything about any knowledge, anyway.”

His dad huffed in laughter. “Graaugh, mrrph hrrgh blaug,” he replied in a low grumble.

Karkat bristled. “Oh _fuck you_ and your degree in aeronautical physics,” he hissed, shaking his free fist at his father. “Nobody gives a shit about some washed up career choice like that—ectophysiological biology is obviously where the future is headed.”

“Blaugh mmg?”

“I’m not having some shitty political debate with my drunken excuse of a sperm donator,” Karkat snapped, turning back to the house phone. He took in a deep breath. “Quit spewing your fecal-flavored words at me, Jesus fucking Christ. I need complete silence for this.”

Papa Vantas looked worried, but Karkat Vantas hasn’t given any fucking shits towards his father’s emotions since his seventh birthday party. Also known as one of the darkest days in Karkat history.

 _Okay_ , the dark-haired teen breathed deeply once more, his eyes squeezed shut. _I can do this. John Egbert will be in so much fucking love with me at the end of all this shit_. _We are going to make out so fucking hard_.

The kisses in the end will be truly glorious, Karkat decided with a gulp.

He picked up the house phone, and immediately dialed the three digits to privatize his phone number.

Then he punched in John Egbert’s phone number, only feeling a lot of fucking creepy and just a little unnerved by his dad’s judging eyes.

Maybe he should’ve done this in his room. Oh _wait_ , the house line was only in the living room.

 _Fuck you dad_ , Karkat thought dejectedly as he held a scrunched up bandana to his mouth.

The phone began to ring.

This shit just got really intense, really fast.

“ _Riiing…Riiing…Riii—Hello?_ ”

“Holy _fuck_ ,” Karkat yelped, almost dropping the phone. He caught it after a short scuffle and brought it back to his ear, the bandana still pressed against his lips. “Hello—err, I mean. Is this John Egbert?” he began by asking.

The line crackled a bit.” _Um, yeah! This is John Egbert,_ ” Egbert’s excitable tenor sounded though the phone. “ _And who is this? Your number came up as ‘Private’ so I didn’t know if you were Dave prankcalling me again, or a legit dude who wanted to chat. So what’s up?_ ”

John Egbert.

 _You adorable, trusting son of a bitch_ , Karkat thought as he ground his teeth in rage. How could one person be so ridiculously cute and actually make him fall in a little more love each time? All of these adoring emotions were getting to be horribly awkward!

“Well first off, I’m not Dave fucking Strider,” Karkat snapped into the phone. He was pleased to find that his voice was appropriately muffled by the bandana. “Which means I can only be one other person—“

“— _Nicolas Cage? Holy sailing ships I love Nic Cage so much—_ “

“Uh, _no_.” Karkat made a confused face. “I’m actually not a shitty actor doomed to star in eternal sequels to already horrible fucking movies.”

“ _Dude, but. Nic Cage. Con-Air._ ”

That legitimately almost killed Karkat’s love boner.

Almost.

“Anyway, I’m your worst fucking nightmare and your dream come true, blah blah _what-the-fuck-ever_ ,” Karkat snarled, shaking his head in disbelief. “Holy fucking Christ you’re ridiculous.”

There was a short pause. “ _What do you mean by that, Cage Hater?_ ” Egbert asked, offended.

“I mean that I’m in love with you, you dum—uh, fuck. Moderately unintelligent human.” Fuck Harley and her forced promise. “Do you remember that note you found in your backpack that Tuesday afternoon, Egbert?”

Egbert made a noise of acknowledgement. “ _Um, yeah_? _The really creepy one?_ ”

“I wrote that note,” Karkat said. His dad immediately projectile spat his beer across the room in his shock. “Because I have a teenaged crush on you that is also real love.”

“ _Jesus crocker, that was you?! Dude, that was sooo creepy! It was actually kind of awkward it was so weird_.”

Karkat felt his dad’s eyes boring into the side of his face. He ignored him, barely. “Yeah, well, tough dick, it happened,” he continued. “And it will probably happen again. Or something.” Fuck, he didn’t actually think this out. “I’m…watching you, Egbert.”

“ _Dude! You’re giving me the shivers over here! And not in a gay subtext, attractive way like in the Road to El Dorado—like, legit creeps! Wow!_ ”

Egbert sounded more enthused than horrified.

Karkat closed his eyes and counted to ten backwards.

“So, okay, I’m fucking watching you and shit,” he ground out, his eyebrows furrowed in anger. “And you will never know it’s me. Ha ha.” The short laugh seemed appropriate, or at least that’s what the Golden Girl’s taught him. Those bitches were masters of murder. Karkat then thought of what Betty White would say. “I hope you don’t end up like my other lovers—they never lasted very long.” Maybe Betty White didn’t have the best advice.

Egbert gasped. “ _Whoa!_ ” he exclaimed, sounding a little scared for once. “ _Are you, um, maybe a serial killer?_ ”

Karkat thanked all the useless, Hindu gods for the opening. “Yeah, I guess I am,” he said confidently. Or at least as confident as a pretend serial killer could get.

“ _What’s your serial killer name? You’ve got to have one bro, or I’ll know you’re shitting me here!_ ”

“They call me,” Karkat paused. “ _the Cancer Killer_.”

His dad got up from his seat and walked away.

Just, walked away. Left his beer and everything.

Karkat hung up the phone after that, letting the embarrassment wash over him like a fucking typhoon.

He was going to be in huge trouble tomorrow.

\----

Karkat walked into school the next day and was immediately accosted by none other than Dave shitting Strider.

“The _Cancer Killer_ ,” Strider hissed, grabbing Karkat by the collar of his sweater and slamming him against the lockers. “I’d say you were shitting me but this is one toilet bowl so fucking _stuffed_ I can hardly believe it. I’m not a plunger, Creepkat, so don’t take me for one.”

“Never—said—you were,” Karkat heaved the words out, his air supply quickly running out. The hallway was quickly filled with curious classmates, including his godforsaken useless ‘friends.’ Eridan chewed bubblegum as he looked on in glee. “What—the fuck—are—you—talking about?”

“Dave, bro!” and here was Egbert now, alive and healthy and already telling his peers about the newest chapter in his life called a shitty mystery novel. “Let him go!” He tugged Strider’s hands roughly and forced the two teenagers away from each other, breathing heavily as he did so. “How could you even think it was Karkat, man? You’re out of control, Dave!”

“I’m _out of control_ —Egbert you trusting, silly little girl, I’m not out of control,” Strider retorted. He turned back to Karkat, his shades glinting in the fluorescent lighting of the school. “Karkat, I’ve given you the benefit of the psychotic doubt before, but this time you’ve crossed the murderous line like a hardy boy gone nancy dread.”

Karkat sneered at him. “Nothing you said made any fucking sense,” he replied, crossing his arms. “Which means to me that you have no proof that I’m whatever you think I am, Fuckface.”

Strider scoffed several times in rapid subsequence. “I have no proof— _I have no proof_ that you’re a creep? Dude, please, enough with the standup comedy, sit down before you kill someone. Emphasis on the _kill_ , the _Cancer Killer_.” He made a face that resembled a grimace in its coolest form. “And Jesus Romantic Comedy Christ, what were you _thinking_ with that one?”

Terezi cackled from somewhere behind him.

“I didn’t make it up!” Karkat snarled, his face burning in embarrassment. He froze, rethinking his actions hard. “…Because I’m not the _Cancer Killer_ , numbnuts.”

Strider, and basically everyone in a three mile radius, made a face of acute disbelief. “But you…are the _Cancer Killer_ ,” the blond teen replied.

“Where’s the proof, Sherlock Strider?” Karkat demanded, cocking a rather thick eyebrow in question.

Strider looked like he couldn’t believe this shit. Frankly, Karkat didn’t really expect him to. “Proof. Karkat, you want proof, when everyone knows you’re a psycho bro,” he said calmly. “And you are a Cancer.”

Egbert looked worried. “You are kind of a Cancer, bro,” he said, looking over at Karkat with wide eyes.

The golden-eyed teen wasn’t gonna take that shit from his one true love. “Wow, you are both equally fucking dumb,” Karkat said in false surprise. “I mean, _jesus_ , I thought getting to senior year of high school meant you held even a modicum of intelligence but I forgot I was dealing with two of the saddest, dumbest lumps of brain matter in Surburbia High.” He shrugged. “I’m not a Cancer, idiots.”

“ _BULLSHIT_ ,” Eridan cried. Karkat wished a thousand fiery souls would crash though the gates of hell and drag him down.

“But you are wearing a sweater with the Cancer zodiac sign on it,” Egbert pointed out.

Karkat looked down at his shirt and internally cursed his limited sense of fashion. “This is,” he paused. “My dad’s. He’s the Cancer in the family. Yep, he’s just a huge fucking crab stumbling about the floor sideways.” That was actually pretty accurate for his dad, he realized later.

“If you’re not a Cancer,” Strider retorted. “Because you definitely _are_ —then which incoherent pile of stars appointed you as stalker spokesman?”

Fuck, now Karkat had to find another zodiac sign to become. His eyes darted to Eridan, and immediately rejected the notion of Aquarius. Then he looked at Terezi, then Feferi, and then maybe Kanaya before he realized this was going nowhere.

He opened his mouth, and immediately regretted his answer. “Sagittarius,” he said. Then he froze. “Uh—“

“ _Sagittarius_?” a looming shadow overcame Karkat, and he wanted to cry like the bitch Eridan referred to him as frequently. He looked up at the large figure behind him, and scowled with all his might.

Equius wiped his sweating forehead with a muscular arm, an uneasy grin on his thin lips. His white, broken teeth glinted in the fluorescent light. “I had no idea you were a Sagittarius,” he said in his oddly articulate, growling voice. “This is possibly pleasant news on my side, Vantas.”

Karkat snorted in disdain. “I wish I could say the same goddamn thing,” he snapped, but that didn’t stop Equius from slapping one heavy, large hand atop his shoulder with the amount of pressure one would expect from an elephant falling off a cliff. “ _…Ouch_.”

“Gentlemen,” Equius turned to Strider and Egbert, who both took small steps back at the sight of the wrestling captain’s frown. “We’ll have to cut this conversation short, unfortunately. I need to reignite my relationship with Vantas based on his sudden revealing that we share the same astronomical sign.”

Strider cocked an eyebrow over his shades. “Sounds hot,” he deadpanned. He turned to Karkat, and the skinny teen could _feel_ his gaze burning into his soul. “I’ll catch you later, _Cancer Killer_ —nah you probably should change that now. How about,” he clicked his tongue in thought. “ _Mister Hands_?”

“Gross!” Egbert scrunched up his face in disgust. “Karkat, don’t listen to Dave—he’s being a huge ass for no reason. I’ll see you in Biology!” And he forcibly dragged Strider down the hall, away from the large group of students just milling in the halls.

Karkat watched them go with a sense of foreboding curling up his spine.

A blue cat hat smothering curly brown hair suddenly popped up in front of him, and he looked down.

“So,” Nepeta drawled, a cute smile on her plump lips. “ _Sagittarius_?”

 **end** **five**


End file.
